


If You're Reading This

by keire_ke, thisiswhatthewatergaveme



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Bed & Breakfast, Brief suicidal thought, Bucky Barnes-centric, But predominantly fluff, Captain America Reverse Big Bang 2019, Everything after the winter soldier is blatantly ignored, Family, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Healing, Hotel Sex, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, M/M, Sam Wilson is a Gift, Slice of Life, Slow Burn, Smut, Steve Rogers Might Be Dumb But We Forgive That In This House, This is what it feels like to be on the winning team, Weddings, eyes emoji, mostly this is just a good time, semi-canon characters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-06
Updated: 2019-06-08
Packaged: 2020-04-11 16:41:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 35,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19113643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/keire_ke/pseuds/keire_ke, https://archiveofourown.org/users/thisiswhatthewatergaveme/pseuds/thisiswhatthewatergaveme
Summary: Bucky comes in from the cold and stumbles into...A) an okay life.B) a tenuous friendship.C) something more.D) a wedding.E) All of the above.Most days, happiness feels like a test. But he's trying, and trying to try, and that might make a difference.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> would u look at that it's a fully formed sambucky fic
> 
> note: it's all pg-13 til lucky chapter 11. does that make it slow burn? really i tried.

  


So the thing is that Bucky’s memory is a lot like a great lump of swiss cheese, only every hole is full of a different kind of cheese, and every new cheese is fouler and bluer than the last, and as it turns out Bucky may or may not be lactose intolerant, and as far as realizations go, it’s both too late and too bad, because he has no way out of his own head. So yeah, he runs. But it’s not cowardice—it’s self-discovery or self-determination, something for himself before he knows who his self is.

He runs to the museum, and it clears out one hole; runs to Brooklyn and it clears out another. Goes on a tour of Stark tower and apologizes, silently, with his hand against the side of the outside façade, before his tour group heads inside. He goes back to D.C. and _boy_ is that a mistake, because every other person seems to be some agent or another, and he spends his trip sick with the hope and the fear that he’ll finally be caught and that’ll be that. He goes to the Falcon’s roost, purely so that he can make that joke to himself, and it’s a cute little house but he _books it_ down the street when he sees movement in one of the front windows. He goes to the hospital. He leaves the hospital. In between, he thinks about walking inside.

He learns about public transportation and how comfortable—but also itchy—a full beard can be; he learns that libraries and information turn out to be free. He learns that he still knows how to commit credit card fraud, and has a good, long night’s sleep on the bank’s dime. He learns how to speak with a flat, standard American accent so nobody looks too closely at him; learns to smile just enough that people to look away without suspicion.

He learns what happened to the family he has only the dimmest hint of recollection of, his sister’s face jumbled in with young, lethal ballerinas and cold-eyed scientists—and darkness, so much so that he’s forced to admit that he spent most of the last sixty-odd years as nocturnal as a vampire. He goes to gravestones and has a good cry. He goes to the building he grew up in. Now the neighborhood’s highlights are brownstones and a bagel place. He has one. It’s alright.

The truth is, for the first time in his whole entire life, James Buchanan Barnes has free time on his hands, so much time and so much freedom that he honestly considers walking right into the ocean and saying _goodbye, so long, all of this sucked_ to the dry land behind him. He’s served his time, done his duty, done other people’s duties, survived longer than he should have, and, at some point, something’s got to give. He knows it’s not going to be St—Captain America. Knows Captain America survived. That’s good. He’s happy about that. Happy that enough shook loose for him to drag the guy out of the river. But if they’re two sides of a coin, stars and stripes versus grease paint, then it’s his turn to go into the water, his turn for silence. He spends all day and all night sitting at a quiet dock, his feet bare, his boots beside him. The later it gets, the blacker the water looks. The more peaceful.

When the sun starts to rise, he finds another hotel. He sleeps it off and, like the sunrise behind him, persists.  

* * *

 

The truth is, he’s waiting for them to come for him. They don’t, and they continue to…not. So he uses the library printers and a stolen arts and crafts kit to forge himself an identity and puts in an application for an apartment. His roommate, he’s pretty sure, is sleepless by default and constantly stoned. But the rent is cheap and it gives him some consistency: he has somewhere to store new clothes, has somewhere to shower and shave, thinks about cutting his hair and realizes he probably wouldn’t be good at it. He ties it up.

It’s a month before he starts to think that maybe, miraculously, he’s accidentally made it too hard for them, so he tries to write St—Captain America a letter. It starts with _Hello, Captain_ , and he feels like a fool for writing it, and more of one when he realizes he doesn’t know where to send it. So he takes a trip to D.C.

As soon as he gets off the train, he finds himself at a crossroad—left will take him to the hospital, but if St— _Steve_ is anything like him (and he knows, in the cache of cobwebs in the back of his brain, that Steve is something better), he’s sure he’s been up and about for weeks. But back when his brain was scrubbed clean, he’d destroyed Steve’s apartment, so he isn’t sure where to look for him.

And that’s why he turns right.

* * *

 

(What he learns later is that when Steve and Sam met up in a cemetery like the shady, sad spies they were trying to be, Sam said, _I’m not like you_ . He said, _I can’t bounce back like that. I’ll be here. And if you need me, I’ll be there—but I can’t set off without direction._ He said, _I’m sorry_ , and, _Be safe_.

And Steve, who’s a sap, said something like, _Did I say we’re leaving right now?_ And agreed, after all, to testify in front of Congress.

And when Bucky says, “So you _left me in their clutches_ ,” Steve, smug as ever, explains the concept of a day job.)

* * *

 

Bucky’s expecting Sam to be there. He expects him to do what he does, which is stand there and stare, mostly, neither friendly nor hostile, just sort of aggressively blank. Steve Bucky does _not_ expect to be there, and as soon as his head pops up behind Sam he begins going through some sort of breakdown, his eyes so big and so overflowing that Bucky thinks, _oh god_ , and realizes that he’s done this to himself.

Sam makes tea. Steve keeps crying, keeps pretending he isn’t, his cheeks getting puffier and puffier, his nose redder. Bucky, who is out of the habit of talking to people who _aren’t_ (so) stoned (that every other thing he says makes them laugh), says nothing. Steve pretends-not-to-cry more. Sam puts Bucky’s mug on the coffee table so hard that Bucky wonders if it’s cracked. Steve _continues to cry_.

Bucky says, “So, I’m not dead,” his voice rusty enough that it cracks so badly that it sounds like he’s lying. “Or brainwashed,” he adds, like that’s going to help. “Recently.”

Bucky is learning both that he is a slow learner and that cracking a stoner up doesn’t mean you’re funny. Steve chokes out a word that isn’t a word.

Sam says, “So are you planning on taking shots at us, or what?” And it’s pretty poetic, that that’s what gets Steve to stop.

Bucky says, “No?”

Sam says, “That inspires confidence,” and Steve drives an elbow into his side—softly, Bucky can tell, because Sam snorts instead of doing something else, like buckling in pain.

“ _Sam_ ,” Steve says. Bucky misses what he says next. He’s looking at how closely they’re sitting together on the couch opposite the loveseat he’s sitting on. They’re sliding into each other a little bit, and maybe that’s because the couch is old and worn and caving in the middle, but they’re comfortable with it, accept each other into their individual spaces with ease. He wonders what that’s like.

And then he remembers what that’s like. It’s so bittersweet that it hurts, a little.

“I thought you would want to know,” he blurts out, and both of them, in the middle of some kind of marital bickering, turn to look at him. “I mean,” he backpedals, “I don’t know if you were looking, or if anyone was—I’ve been living in Brooklyn, it’s. It’s different.” And _god_ is he mortified. He’s out of the habit of most things; he knows he spent the last month mostly living like the weird hermit he looked like before cleaning himself up, but he’d thought that at some point the ease with people that he _used_ to have might have slotted itself back into place. But it hasn’t, and it’s so evident that even _Sam’s_ expression softens, from general distaste to something confused and, maybe, if Bucky’s generous, concerned.

“Different,” Steve says, like he’s willing to go along with it. His reaction is worse; his face starts to puff up again, and Bucky does not want to see it. “Yeah, I went back a few weeks after I woke up.”

“We missed a lot, huh,” Bucky says, and looks to the ceiling for someone to stop him.

“Small talk,” Sam says. “This is what you guys are doing. Okay. Alright. Don’t blow up my house.” And when Bucky brings himself back down to earth Sam is at the front door, jacket and keys in hand.

“You’re leaving?” Bucky asks.

“Absolutely,” Sam says, and doesn’t slam the door behind him, but it isn’t gentle.

Bucky thinks this might be what he’s been most afraid of. It’s incredible, really—Steve is looking at him, so open, so ready to be warm, and it’s the worst thing he’s seen since he’s returned to himself. He is so unready to disappoint him. He is so unready for the magnitude of the apology necessary. He knows that the longer he waits, the heavier this will feel, but he doesn’t have the words to speak to him. _I’m glad I didn’t kill you_ is nothing, _I’m sorry I left you bloody_ is worse, _We’re two lucky sons of bitches, aren’t we_ is worthless.

He settles for, “Sam seems good.”

“Yeah,” Steve says. “A couple of his ribs were…” Steve sobers, and when he straightens his spine, Bucky can see it—both of them are different, different before war, different after war, different after the impossibilities they both endured, even after that. Steve has aged around the eyes in a way that scientists and beauticians have never had a word for. And Bucky is so, so sorry for it.

“You did a lot of damage,” Steve says. “You can’t expect him to be happy to see you here.”

“God no,” Bucky says.

“I thought you might kill me,” Steve says.

Bucky says, “So did I.” He wonders how to explain the way that fighting Steve had felt like fighting himself, how every word Steve said resounded in his head, so loudly that his choices were to swing or to perish. How, if Bucky’s honest with himself, he’s never really wanted to die. How killing Steve would be killing himself, how killing himself would kill Steve, how tangled up he was in his own head, every version of himself screaming.

He settles for, “I’m glad I didn’t. I am so, _so_ glad I didn’t.” And, so small that he wonders if Steve can tell it’s with the very last of his breath, “I’m so sorry.”

“Thank you for coming back,” Steve says, and god, what a pair, the two of them, both of them running on empty. Bucky could laugh. He settles for taking the hand the Steve extends across the coffee table.

“You seen 3-D movies these days?” Bucky asks, after they’ve been holding on to each other a little too long, a little like they might forget how to let go—and they need to, Bucky thinks, need to learn how to exist with forward momentum all over again. Steve laughs wetly, and rubs at his eyes with both hands, breaking himself away. Bucky’s hand feels empty.

“Yeah,” Steve says. “ _Wildly_ overrated.”

“Totally,” Bucky lies, who has already seen How To Train Your Dragon 2 three times, and paid for it twice.

As if to call him out, Bucky’s mug of still-warm tea begins to leak across the table’s surface. It’s worth it to hear how loudly Steve laughs, like it surprises him, too, that he can still make a sound like that.

And then he says, “Oh—no,” and his hand goes to his rib.

“Steve,” Bucky says.

“I think one of my ribs healed in the wrong place,” he says, like he isn’t squirming around with his hand across his abdomen, prodding things that should not need prodding. “I think I’m gonna have to—”

It’s gas.

Bucky laughs until he cries on the train home. It’s the first time people taking one look at him and sitting as far away from him as they can manage makes him feel like a New Yorker. A new New Yorker. Something.

It’s something.

* * *

 

When he feels like he can, he goes back to D.C. He’s scruffy again; has his hair tied back in a knot but he’s found his facial hair sweet-spot, just enough for cover, just enough to obscure the places his mask used to fix onto. He’s sure there’s some kind of significance there, but also? He’s ignoring it.

Sam answers the door again. “Why do you look like that?”

Bucky has to look at himself to try and figure out what he means—he’s clean, his hoodie is comfortable, and, yeah, the baseball cap maybe doesn’t match, but it’s bright out. He doesn’t get it.

“Are you running from someone?” Sam asks, and narrows his eyes. “What did you bring to my house, Barnes.”

And hell if that doesn’t give Bucky a moment of vertigo. Every person who’s ever said his name like that has usually followed it with detention or a spanking, and already on instinct he finds himself looking for someone else to draw attention to, because _no one ever catches Steve, Miss, but I’m telling you_ —

“Uh,” Bucky says. “Nothing?”

“Then why do you look like you’re trying _and failing_ to be incognito?”

“It was chilly this morning,” he defends, and Sam looks like he’s close to a smile despite himself.

“Whatever,” he says, waving Bucky in. “Steve’s in the backyard.” And like before, he reaches for his jacket.

“You don’t have to,” Bucky starts, and Sam is looking at him like he’d really be better of not saying anything, but he’s gotta. “I wanted to—I mean, it’s your house.”

“Don’t I know it,” Sam says, and glides past him and out the door.

When Bucky gets outside, Steve’s sitting on a porch swing on Sam’s deck. It’s a nice little set-up—there’s enough simple furniture for a small party, a barbeque at the edge of the cement deck, his grass is green and not too long, and the young trees that line the perimeter of his fence are beginning to flower.   

Steve looks up from a book when the door opens, though it’s not with as much surprise as Bucky’s expecting.

“Hey,” he says. “Do you want some lunch? I was about to make some sandwiches.”

“Yeah, sure,” Bucky says. “Hey,” like he doesn't really care to know the answer, “why did Sam jet out of here so quick?”

“Oh,” Steve says. Bucky can see the diplomacy wheels turning in Steve’s brain; Bucky, then, has no choice but to prepare for the requisite eye-roll as soon as whatever Steve says—“Sam doesn't think you’re a threat, if that’s what you’re worried about. To me.”—stops him short.  

Steve is swinging towards the door, casual, like that was as subtle and blasé as he’s trying to pass it off as, but Bucky’s too struck by the confirmation of his fears to tell him that it wasn't subtle, it wasn't small, and he doesn't know what to do with that. He knows Steve and Sam are close. If he’s honest with himself, he knows that they’re more important to each other than he could ever interfere with, than he’d ever _want_ to interfere with, but the idea that Sam sees him as a threat, still, that every time he lets him into his home he has to disregard his own safety, makes Bucky…uncomfortable.

“Cool,” is what Bucky says about it, following Steve to sandwiches, made in the house of the man whose safety and sense of home Bucky tramples all over every time he comes into town. “Actually…”

“Hm?” Steve says, four octaves too high, his eyes on rye and ham.

“Um. You both, I’m assuming. When Project Insight fell, you…I mean, all the files that came out. You know. About me?”

“Are you okay?” Steve asks. Bucky is not.

“I’m uncomfortable,” he admits. “I don’t like that I’m making _Sam_ uncomfortable. Steve, this is his house.”

“He’s allowed you to be here.”

“And I’m sure you didn't pressure him into that at all,” Bucky says.

“I wouldn't—”

“You’re Captain America,” Bucky says sadly. “You pressured the Winter Soldier into saving your life. I’m not saying it to call you malicious, I just think you need to consider—”

“ _Yes_ ,” Steve says, the color rising in his cheeks. “We know about the Winter Soldier. What they did to you. Not everything, but. Natasha got us files—the Black Widow.”

“I've seen her on TV,” Bucky says, which isn't necessarily a lie.

“You shot her, once.”

“Through her,” he corrects, because he can. “Twice.”

There’s a moment, with Steve looking at him, and Bucky looking back, a moment where Bucky can see both of them realize where they are and the bodies they’re in; the blood on their hands. There’s a lack of artifice, in that moment, that Bucky appreciates. That he’s starting to think he needs.

“I can’t say that neither of them blame you,” Steve says, low, a little grim. It makes Bucky smile. His smile isn’t any happier, he knows. “But I can say that both of them have helped me—helped me find you, helped me keep you off of anyone else’s radar. HYDRA’s documents detail everything, the brainwashing, the experimentation. You almost killed Nat, you almost killed Sam, and neither of them know who you are outside of that. I do. They’re putting a lot of trust in me.”

“I’m not going to hurt them.”

“Neither of us can promise that.” Steve shrugs. “All we can do is ease them into…whatever it is we’re doing here. Whoever it is you are now.”

“ _How_?” And that’s the thing, isn’t it? Bucky knows there isn’t an answer, knows Steve doesn’t have one, but for a moment, Natasha and Sam are the answer to a different sort of question—if he’s learning to be a person again, aren’t they the test? The last frontier? If they’ve seen the worst, isn’t it up to them to determine if his version of better, whatever that is, measures up?  

And he didn’t think he’d see Steve, when he came to Sam’s house. He thought he’d see Sam. Thought, best case scenario, Sam’d get a chance to get a shot in, knock him around a little bit, maybe give him enough time in between all of that to start in on a long list of apologies. But even that was mostly just wishful thinking—he knew Sam wouldn’t be the type, not if he’d hitched his cart to Steve and Steve had hitched his back. But a part of him thought that there’d be a moment, maybe—he’d knock, the door would open, and—

And—

And the blank space in his imagining was filled with Sam staring and Steve crying. Serves him right for wishful thinking at all, he supposes.

“Mayo?” Steve asks.

But Bucky, lost in the idea of blank spaces, asks, “What if I write to him?”

“Pickles?” Steve asks, a little frantically.

“I hate pickles,” Bucky says. “That way he doesn’t have to see me, right? No pressure. And if he’s not ready for any of that, he can just throw it away.”

“Tomatoes,” Steve says, and he sounds like he’s giving up, which Bucky doesn’t understand, because Bucky thinks this is a great idea.

“It worked in _Thunder’s Mistress_ ,” Bucky says, and Steve closes his eyes. “Remember? The cyborg and the redhead—”

“Please don’t do this.”

“I can stick it under the welcome mat.”

“Sam,” Steve says to the ceiling, “is going to say that I enabled this. I didn’t. All I did was offer you lunch.”

“Can I borrow some paper?” Steve looks like he wants to refuse, but the joke’s on him. Bucky has a library card.

* * *

 

Bucky has read a lot of pulp fiction. Back in the day, he liked the science fiction features, the steamier the covers, the better. He also liked detective novels, aliens, adventure stories, and, for all that Steve made fun of him for it, he even had a tiny collection of romance novels, all stacked in the same corner under his bed, out of sight and out of mind (except for when they very much weren’t).

All this to say, he knows how writing works. Steve was the artist; Bucky was the writer. Sometimes, they talked about writing a comic feature together. It never came to anything, but Bucky had drafted ideas, brothers fighting monsters who lived in the sewers; police officers whose departments introduced androids and their wives who had to save the lot of them from a take-over; superheroes from distant planets that both crash landed on Earth and fell in love. It was a relief, in those days, to write something fanciful and nonsensical, something that wasn’t the daily monotony of factory work or the looming long shadow of war. Sometimes he’d read Steve his stories in his sickbed; he always took special favor to the ones that made him laugh.

So when he sits at his favorite table in the library, close to the windows—lots of natural light—and picks up a pencil, he expects it to feel like riding a bike.

It does.

The part where one, in their attempt to ride the bike, falls off of it, and the bike, victorious, lands on top of them.

* * *

 

The main problem, he realizes (after three hours), is that he doesn’t know what he wants Sam to know. It’s not an apology— _I’m sorry_ doesn’t fit, here. It’s not big enough, doesn’t cover enough, isn’t the extended hand he wants to offer. But he doesn’t feel like he can offer that hand, yet, which means the letter is the laying of groundwork. He wants Sam to know that he wants to do _that_ , set up for something that isn’t, yet. But there aren’t words for whatever _that_ is. And so the cycle continues for two more hours, during which time the paper he’s working on grows gray and tattered from the writing and erasing and erasing and erasing until both sides are worn through and every time he puts the pencil down, he’s boring holes.

“There’s uh,” says the librarian, a young woman who radiates calm while also, somehow, making Bucky sure she’s making fun of him. “More paper.” He hadn’t even heard her come up to his table, and that’s saying something—the cart she’s pushing is only half full of returned books, which has the wheels rattling loudly against the carpet. The librarian raises her eyebrows when he stares at her.

“I don’t want to be wasteful,” he says.

“Yeah,” she says, and pulls a small stack of paper from the lower rack of her. When she drops it on the table, a small flurry of eraser shavings blow over him. “So don’t be wasteful. But also, try not to write on the table. The graphite’s a pain to clean.” And once she’s rolled her cart away, he starts over again.  

He doodles. He writes out Sam’s name. He pretends he’s a forger and signs his own name in different hands. He draws seven different frowning faces. And then he writes, _Dear Sam_ , and feels like an idiot.

But he keeps going anyway: _Probably I will hand you this on your way out and I just want you to know_

 

_If you find this under your mat, I hope you understand that_

 

☹

 

_Thank you for letting Steve into your house, even though he’s never been house-trained. Truly you have done a service._

 

_Yours_

 

 _Sincerely_  

 

_From_

 

_Apologetically,_

~~_James Buchanan B_ ~~

_Bucky_

He cleans it up—goes with _Dear Wilson_ , because he figures they aren’t close enough for all that yet, and dives directly into throwing Steve under the bus, and finds that _Apologetically_ is the only send-off that feels close to honest, and the letter that he means to be long and thorough and heart-bearing is suddenly less than half a page long, but it’s something. It’s the sort of something that Sam might read before he realizes what it is. Bucky entertains the worst case scenario—Sam, locking eyes with him, tearing the letter in half and slamming the literal and figurative door between them shut forever— before rewriting it in careful, clean cursive with a ballpoint pen. But he already knows that even cold and distant, Sam isn’t spiteful. Bucky thinks that the real worst case scenario might be his reading the letter and requesting, politely and so, so painfully, that Bucky not contact him again. But the best case scenario is a little less fear, and Bucky wants that, so badly. So he folds the letter in half, writes Sam Wilson over the top, and makes a plan. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> all the chapters are droppin in the next few hours! wow i really wrote a 30k word fic for something that was supposed...to be....15k...an idiot.

Bucky is not good at plans.

He gets to Sam’s house the next weekend with the letter in his metal hand because the other is clammy. His stomach is squirming, but he’s committed. He’ll drop the letter on the doormat, walk in, say hello, and when Sam is on his way out, he’ll see it, he’ll pick it up, and it’ll be fine. But by the time Bucky’s walking up the pavement, Sam is already opening the door, and he leans in the doorframe, his arms crossed, watching Bucky’s progress with a flat expression, and Bucky might throw up in his flower bushes, and wouldn’t that be graceful.

He reminds himself: he has already done the worst that he’ll ever do. A little shame might be good for him.

“This—I didn’t think you’d be—I wrote—” He’s forgotten how to speak and, judging by the dance Sam’s eyebrows have engaged themselves in, it sounds as painful as it feels. Bucky thrusts the letter out in front of himself.

Sam opens it without a word. Every second feels like a day, and Bucky wonders what it feels like to pass out, and then wonders if he’s breathing correctly.

And then Sam hands it back to him.

Bucky doesn’t know what he expected—a laugh, hopefully, maybe a snide comment. There isn’t a single version of this in which he’d anticipated Sam looking at him, half squinting in the weekend sunshine.

And saying, “I can’t read cursive.”

Bucky feels his whole body freeze. Sam, who does not notice, moves back to wave Bucky in, and says, “The house is all yours, don’t break anything,” and walks out without waiting for Bucky to say a word. Which is good, because Bucky needs a moment. Several moments. Many.

“Buck?” Steve says from the living room.

“Ah,” Bucky says, only it comes out mostly like a gurgle.

Steve comes to the entryway to meet him, the very picture of concern, pulling him all the way over the threshold and into Sam’s living room and on to the nearest couch, and Bucky can’t. He can’t tell him what happened. It’s too much. But Steve pulls the letter out of his hand almost automatically, and  _ Steve  _ laughs about it, which is nice, but Sam  _ can’t read Bucky’s handwriting _ , so there goes that option, and isn’t that brilliant.

“Did he not, uh. Like it?” Steve asks, voice small, gentle, like this isn’t a crisis.

“I don’t know, Steve,” Bucky says. “As he couldn’t read it.”

“Why not?”

“Because he can’t read cursive.”

“Of course he can read cursive,” Steve says.

“He looked at the letter, and said,  _ I can’t read cursive _ —”

“Maybe  _ your  _ cursive—”

“—and then  _ took off _ , as he does.”

“—which sounds fair to me, so.” 

Bucky stares at Steve, his most useless friend. “My handwriting is perfect.”

Steve holds the letter in between them. “Perfect?”

“Prove me wrong, Rogers.”

Steve furrows his brow in a way Bucky knows is for show, especially when he says, “But why do I need to do that? The fact that Sam can’t read it is proof enough.”

And Bucky doesn’t even get to be mad, not really, because Steve did what he was obviously trying to do, which was cheer him up. Bucky’s gone from mortified to just lightly aggravated, which he knows is an improvement, but god—hours of work for a three-line letter, and all for nothing.

“You can read it to him later,” Bucky says, more order than question.

“Of course,” Steve says.

“Good,” Bucky says, and realizes that was really the only reason he came over. “Did I ever tell you Rebecca had kids? Grandkids too.”

Steve’s face smooths over like he’s willing it to, careful and calm. “Is Rebecca still…?”

“No,” Bucky says, and isn’t that a pang. But he read her obituary, and it was beautiful; he feels almost guilty for it, but he took comfort in how many people she left behind her, how many people loved her. “But she has a daughter in Tarrytown.”

“Are you going to see her?”

“No,” Bucky says, but it isn’t any easier to hear it out loud, for all that he’s been saying it to himself since he found her records through the library’s system. “Steve, I died in 1945. I’m a stranger to them—all of them. If it was Becca, maybe, but even then. Why reopen old wounds?”

“I understand that,” Steve says carefully, like Bucky can’t see the muscle twitch in his jaw, “but you have a family here. You’re an uncle. And a great-uncle too.” Steve’s breathing has picked up; there are very few things a good snipers’ eye can be used for in civilian life, but stress is always clear as day. “You’re really not gonna do anything about that?” 

“I didn’t come here to talk about that,” Bucky says, and he’s trying not to sound exasperated, he is, but god, that’s his business. He should’ve known better than to throw it at Steve, even as a distraction. He  _ does _ know better. He just forgot—forgot the way his family stood in for Steve’s absence, the way Steve always looked at him and Becca in—not in envy, right, because that would mean that he wanted Bucky’s sister for his own, Bucky be damned, but he’d looked at them in a way that made even him grinning look lonely. And here Bucky is refusing that.

“It wouldn’t be fair to them,” Bucky says gently, and Steve says, “It’s almost lunch time, do you want—” and is up and away from Bucky without looking at him, pulling at his clothes like they don’t fit him correctly, like he doesn’t fit.

“Steve—”

“There’s pastrami, turkey—I think we’ve got leftover pizza, too, but that might be Sam’s.”

“I don’t want Sam’s pizza!”

“He wouldn’t mind.”

“The hell I wouldn’t,” Sam says, Sam who has appeared out of nowhere and maybe Bucky’s rustier than he thought he was because god does that make him fucking jump.

Sam closes the door behind him with his foot. He’s got his hands full of mail. Bucky considers offering his help. He discards the thought immediately. He wonders, probably too late, if it’s creepy for him to watch Sam’s progression across the house, the way he drops the mail on the counter, the way he hip checks Steve out of the way of the fridge, the way he grabs the jug of orange juice like he might drink from its mouth, and then re-routes to the cabinets, almost reluctantly.

“Buck!”

“I’m—yes—what _? _ ”

“What do you want to eat?” Steve is smirking, the asshole, which is all well and good, except now Sam’s noticed, and is looking at Bucky almost suspiciously, like he can’t even trust Steve making fun of him.

“God, I don’t  _ care _ ,” Bucky says. “Just—make whatever and come back when you’re done throwing a fit.”

He watches Steve’s expression sour, and he knows, he  _ knows  _ that Sam’s his best friend, enough that Sam notices, too, and then  _ he’s  _ staring Bucky down, and Bucky always knew he had a big mouth, he just didn’t realize it was big enough for both of his feet.

“He could bring lunch around once in a while,” Sam says, halfway to quiet, absolutely intended for Bucky to hear it, too. “Instead of eating us out of house and home.”

“I—do you want—” Bucky’s on his feet before he knows what he’s doing, and feels like an idiot, but it’s already too late. “I passed a sandwich place and a—I could—”

“Okay,” Sam says, and puts his glass in the sink. “Whatever’s going on… with all that. I’m going for a run.”

“It’s kind of hot out,” Steve says.

“Do you want company,” Bucky says, and regrets it.

“I do not,” Sam says slowly, like he isn’t sure Bucky has a brain, but if he does, it must be under considerable strain. “Man, I just need to be… not here.”

“I could go,” Bucky says.

“Could you?” Sam says, and it’s rhetorical; he has his face scrunched up like Bucky’s a child he’s patronizing and Bucky only kind of wants to die.

“Why don’t you know how to read cursive?” he blurts out, because in for a penny, in for a pound, and honestly, he has nothing to lose. Literally nothing. He lives in a closet and all his clothes are third hand and Steve is the only person he knows.

“Why can’t you write like a regular person?”

“Regular people write in cursive,” Bucky says, offended despite himself. “I have impeccable handwriting.”

“Sure, for a doctor.”

“I’m not a doctor?”

“Should I leave?” Steve says. “Should I just leave, right now? It’s just I feel like there’s a lot of processing going on that I do not have to be here for.”

“I don’t have any processing to do,” Sam says.

“I do,” Bucky says, “I do, actually. Um.” Sam’s eyebrows take to the ceiling.

And this is it. This is his moment. This is the part where he tells Sam that he’s sorry, that he’s trying, that he’d appreciate some instruction. That he doesn’t want to drive him from his house. That he’s working on things—himself, his place in the world. That he appreciates what he’s done, how hard this has been for him, how hard  _ Bucky  _ has made things for him. That he’ll follow his lead. And he knows it’s flying right in the face of his plan, but Bucky stands up straight—the better to get the words out.

And says, “You should learn how to read,” because he’s an idiot.

“Steve,” Sam says, “Get your boy.”

“I don’t think so,” Steve says. “I think I’m enjoying this.”

“You need to make up your mind,” Bucky says. “This is your house! You don’t want me here, I don’t have to be here. If you’re fine with me here, then—then act like—”

“Like you didn’t try to kill me?”

“But did you die?”

“Oh my god,” Steve says.

“Oh my  _ god _ ,” Sam says.

_ Oh my god _ , Bucky thinks, but he says, “The answer is  _ no _ . And—and I’ve  _ tried _ !”

“Tried to be a pain in my ass!”

“Not technically,” Bucky says.

“Not even literally,” Steve says, and has the nerve to laugh when both of them flip him the bird.

“Look man, I get it,” Sam says. “You’re trying to be a person, you’re trying to move on from all the terrible shit you did, and that’s fine, that’s great. But that’s got nothing to do with me.”

“Of course it has—” But Sam’s already crossing his arms, already shutting himself away, and Bucky doesn’t know what it is, he doesn’t know why, but he doesn’t want that, doesn’t want to lose this moment of interaction, this brief interlude where they’re talking, and Sam is mad but the difference is this: he’s mad at Bucky the way he  _ is _ , instead of afraid of Bucky the way he  _ was _ , and he needs this, he wants this, he’s keeping this. So: “My roommate is a stoner,” he says. “The common room always stinks, but rent is dirt cheap so I’m not gonna say anything, obviously. I do my shopping mostly at independent thrift stores, and I like train travel more than I thought I would, considering my history. I—I have a niece. I’m…working on it.” And  _ it  _ is living,  _ it  _ is integrating into a world that’s never felt like his to have,  _ it  _ is existing,  _ it  _ is tolerating being alive.

“He’s not gonna see her, though,” Steve says, half under his breath. But Sam is right next to him, and his eyes, that had widened to something kind, almost, narrow to slits.

“Of course he’s not.”

“Yes, I am!” Bucky snaps. Steve looks taken aback, Sam still suspicious, but it’s his business, isn’t it? His family; his progress. “My own way.”

“And what way is that?” Sam asks.

“I’ll write…” Bucky catches sight of Steve, shaking his head, soft and slight and sincere. “I’ll call her, maybe.”

“Call her?”

“How would you break this kind of news?” Bucky asks, waving down himself, arm and all. He curls his metal fingers into a fist; every one whirs on its way down as loud in the quiet house as a dawn chorus.

Sam blows out a billowing breath, so long and so hard that his cheeks balloon, until finally, spent, he says, “I’ve got some reading material. Re-entering civilian life, how to talk to your family as a vet, that kind of thing. It won’t be spot on, but it might—”

“Yeah,” Bucky says, too quickly. “Yeah. Sure, yes.”

And like that, they’ve got a détente.


	3. Chapter 3

That’s how Bucky finds himself in the library, first thing in the morning, his eyes on the White Pages pulled up on the computer. His eyes on Rebecca’s daughter’s phone number. Jaime Proctor. It makes them namesakes. That, of course, makes him sad; makes him miss his sister. But it’s a dull ache; he thinks it’ll sharpen if he talks to Jaime and she sounds like Becca, if he sees her and he thinks about all the other things he’s missed—her first steps, Becca’s wedding, her first words, Becca’s life as an adult, her likes, dislikes, how tall she got, how she was as a grandmother, what she did with her life, if she ever became a teacher like she said she would, if she did something else, if Jaime knew that her uncles would have loved her.

“Are you stuck?” asks the librarian, who has once again crept up behind Bucky, and she’s lucky her reflexes are quick, because otherwise his head would have absolutely collided with her round little nose, and then who would’ve felt like a fool.

Bucky. Still Bucky.

“Hi—hello—no, thank you,” he says, flustered by her proximity. Almost apologetically, she takes a step back. She has a pencil stuck into her afro; he wonders if she’s forgotten it’s there.

“It’s just that you’ve been sitting in front of the computer for a long time, and we usually have a one-hour limit.”

“But…” Bucky looks around. Every other desktop in the computer bank is empty.

“Yeah,” the librarian says, and grins. “That’s why I said ‘usually.’”

“I’m not stuck,” Bucky says.

“Yeah, you are,” the librarian says. “I recommend writing out a list of talking points.”

“I—sorry?”

“Call anxiety? It’s a pretty common thing, especially since people don’t have to do it too often, anymore. Jot down a quick list—the things you want to make sure you remember—not to use it like a script, but to have it as a back-up plan in case you feel anxious, or nervous, or otherwise likely to slip up. It might come in handy.”

“I don’t have any—” She drops a neat stack of paper in front of him and throws him a wink.

“Just stick what’s left over in the printer, when you’re done. See ya.”

“Uh,” Bucky says, because he’s trying, damn it, “I’m. Bucky.” He’s also looking forward to the earth swallowing him whole, some time soon, but the librarian pauses in her wheeling away of the book cart and smiles at him.

“Sarah,” she says. “Good luck.”

“Thanks,” Bucky says, and doesn’t say he needs it, because he imagines that’s obvious.

* * *

 

He takes the call outside. It rings for what feels like a lifetime. It’s windy outside, and his list of highlights— _Hi, is this Jaime; Your mother’s name was Rebecca; You have no reason to believe me; I’d like to meet you; I missed so much; I know what this sounds like/impossible/believe me_ —keeps flapping between his fingers, but he’ll be damned if he heads back inside for anyone to overhear this. It’s already painful; he can’t imagine her answering will be any less so.

“Hello?”

“Hi, is this,” Bucky starts, almost fumbling the phone out of his grip in surprise. “I mean—sorry—hi!”

“Hi,” the voice on the other end says, audibly confused. It’s a younger voice than he was expecting. He’s starting to think he might have fucked this up.

“Hi is—is Jaime there? Jaime Proctor?”

“Thanks, but we’re not interested.”

“Um,” Bucky says. “In what?”

“In whatever you’re selling?”

“No, I’m—sorry, I’m not, I—I just—my name is—I’m related to Jaime’s mother.”

“Okay,” the voice says, and she sounds like she’s starting to get annoyed. “Well I’m Jaime’s daughter. So maybe you’d like to make your point before I hang up.”

“Oh,” Bucky squeaks. “I, um. Your grandmother’s name was Rebecca.”

“I’m aware, yes.”

“You have no reason to believe me,” he says, and remembers what Sarah said about not treating it like a script. “But my name is James Buchanan Barnes. I’m—Rebecca was my sister.”

“Really,” Jaime’s daughter—Bucky’s _great-niece_ —says, her voice wry. “You’re sounding a little spry for someone in their nineties.”

“I know this sounds—” He fumbles with his cheat sheet, but the ink is smudging, and maybe, he thinks, when he has to bring it closer to his face, Sam was right—his writing _is_ kind of hard to read. “Impossible, but—” In an unexpectedly pointed burst of wind, the air rips his cheat sheet from his hand, and he watches, too slow and too defeated to catch it, as it spirals off into oncoming traffic. “I know this sounds impossible,” he repeats, and there must be something of that dejection in his voice, because the woman on the line sighs, and says, “Mom, you’ve got a sad-sounding prank caller.”

“Kimmie,” an older voice says, echoing down the line, “you know I don’t like pranks.”

“Kimmie,” Bucky whispers to himself.

“Kim,” Kim says sharply, and Bucky could pinch himself.

“Sorry,” he says.

“Here,” she says, and then Jaime is there, her, “Well, hello?” more welcome than Bucky expected it to be.

“Hi,” he says. “Is this Jaime Proctor?”

“Yes?”

“I know you probably won’t believe this,” he says, “but your mother, Rebecca—she was my sister.”

“My mother only had one brother,” she says. “He died in the war.”

“Not exactly,” Bucky says, and he wonders if he’s going to cry, here on the steps of the public library. It’s feeling pretty 50-50. “My name’s Bucky—James Buchanan Barnes. I—well, I’m sure you have photos or something, right? Maybe if you meet me, it’ll—maybe you’ll believe me. I’d like—I mean, if I could meet you, that’d be—I only just learned that Becca had kids, and I’m…I know I missed a lot. It’s the first thing I noticed, when I…when I was myself again.”

“And who were you before that?” Jaime asks, and it’s the same dry tone that he daughter used, the same kind of voice he could picture his sister using, all grown up and used to seeing through bullshit, less gullible, less young. And that does it—there are the tears.

“Now, young man,” Jaime says. “This is a little bit far, don’t you think.”

“I’m sorry,” Bucky says, and he’s always been a messy crier, heaves and stuttering and lock-throated, congested almost immediately. He probably sounds like an idiot. “I just hadn’t really processed that Becca’s gone, I think, and I know you don’t know me from Adam, and I don’t know what I could tell you to make you believe me, but—”

“Well, my mother used to tell a story,” Jaime says. “About you and a scrappy, sickly boy called—”

“Steve,” Bucky says. “Of course he was a part of the story.”

“Don’t interrupt,” Jaime chastises, gently but enough that Bucky zips it immediately. “She was being chased around the block by some bullies. They’d been playing stickball and wouldn’t let the small boy play, so she snatched up the ball and took off running. And she said her brother scared them off.”

“Put the fear of god right back in them,” Bucky says. “Our downstairs neighbor was a theater artist—made masks and puppets and things like that. So I borrowed a mask—ugliest thing you’ve ever seen, blue and black and green like something dead thing out of a swamp. Big fangs, big yellow eyes. The mask was huge, too, so big that it came down over my shoulders. So she’s running, I see it, I grab the mask, head off the fire escape, and drop down between them and her, shrieking like a demon.” Halfway through the tears stop, and then Bucky’s laughing, even though Jaime’s silent. He remembers: “I did this weird little knees-up dance, yelled at them, they turned around so fast one of them scraped his knee, another one peed himself. Half of them went home crying. I think they thought they left Becca to be eaten by whatever the monster was, but Becca was behind me, laughing herself sick. Then me, her, ‘n Steve played catch and re-enacted the stickball boys’ panic faces til it got dark. It was… I can’t believe she remembered that. She couldn’t have been more than eight.”

“Must’ve been a memorable afternoon,” Jaime says faintly.

Bucky clears his throat. “Sorry. I kind of…lost myself there, for a second.”

“No,” Jaime says, and then stronger: “No. I think I will meet you, Mr. Barnes. And I’ll have my pictures pulled down from the attic. We’ll see what the truth is.”

“Okay,” Bucky says, suddenly nervous. “Uh, when?”

“Nothing good ever came of waiting,” she says brusquely. “Tomorrow at noon. Leave me your number, and I’ll have Kim message text you the address.”

“Mom,” Kim says, from somewhere in the house. “You can’t be serious. You’re giving a random creep your address?”

“Hush, Kimmie,” Jaime says. And then she lowers her voice. “Tell me then—where’ve you been? Time travel? Aliens?”

“You know Captain America?” Bucky asks.

“Why, sure! But he’s just a—Steve Rogers,” she says, and then again, “Steve _Rogers_. That’s—”

“That’s our friend Steve,” Bucky says. “And that stuff they put into him, I got a version kind of like it. And then they, uh. Put me away for a couple years.”

“Put you away? Like jail?”

“Like a cryogenic chamber,” Bucky says. “So, sort of.”

“I’ll look that up,” Jaime says. “But why’d they all say you died?”

“Because I should have,” Bucky says, and it’s only when Jaime gasps that he realizes that maybe that’s not the sort of thing you say to people. “I fell from a train. Steve thought I was dead. So did the army. But the people who found me made a different call.”

“I’ve always liked science fiction,” Jaime says, a little wistfully. “It sounds like you’ve got oodles of stories.”

“And I’ll tell them to you,” Bucky promises. “Anything you want to hear.” And for a second, he allows himself to picture it: himself in a family home, three generations of Barnes-Proctors, telling stories, eating together, bonding, maybe, being together. He doesn’t know what he’s feeling; he thinks it might be fear. It’s new, for him—or it’s just been a while. It’s potent.

* * *

 

**Steve**

(4:05 pm) I’m going. Tomorrow afternoon.

 

(4:05 pm) (…)

(4:06 pm) (…)

(4:39 pm) (…)

(5:16 pm) Let me know if u want company! It should be good! Good luck.

 

(5:17 pm) Thanks.

 

(5:17 pm) (…)

(5:47 pm) Sam says pamphlets should help. Did u read htem?

(5:47 pm) Them.

 

(5:48 pm) Yeah. Enough to pull out what’s applicable.

(5:51 pm) Don’t know how much it’ll help.

 

(5:55 pm) Y do u say that

 

(5:56 pm) Because

(5:57 pm) (…)

(5:59 pm) (…)

(6:07 pm) (…)

(6:53 pm) No I think it’ll be fine.

 

(7:05 pm) 😊

* * *

 

He waits all night for Steve to say something useful. The dots flash, again and again, but it stays on that vapid little smiley face. And Bucky knows he’s probably being a little mean—he knows that Steve wants to come, wants to meet them, but he doesn’t want to throw more fuel onto the fire before he learns whether or not he’ll end up burned.

He tries to pep-talk himself in his Steve-voice anyway, but every _it’ll be okay, it’ll be great, of course they’ll like you, of course they won’t run screaming_ , sounds as fake as his left arm. So he stops trying, and instead does what he is very, very good at: he broods.

He can hear Patrick laughing quietly in the living room, and thinks about joining him, trying the stuff that has him in a permanent state of calm, but the last thing he needs is to discover an adverse reaction the day before what is quickly beginning to feel like the most important day of his life. He figures he could go out and talk to him, though. Maybe he’ll have some insight. Maybe Bucky will stop feeling like the world’s biggest sad sack.

But when he walks out, he finds Patrick talking to someone on the phone, held up in a video chat; not laughing alone after all, but talking to someone who looks like they might be his mom.

“No, I’m good,” he says, “it’s all good, I promise. He’s sleeping.”

“And he’s not some kind of creep?” his mom asks. “You never know who answers that kind of ad.”

“He’s not a creep,” Patrick says, and laughs again. “Seems confused a lot, but a nice enough guy.”

“Uh-huh,” his mom says, sounding very convinced.

Bucky slinks back to his room.

He doesn’t sleep more than three hours, but he tries.

* * *

 

**Steve**

(5:57 am) I still have time to change my mind, right?

(6:17 am) Right???

(7:49 am) RIGHT?

 

(7:50 am) Good morning, please stop shouting.

(7:50 am) ☹

 

(7:51am) Fuck you.

(7:52 am) Go take a nap.

 

(7:53am) 🖕

 

(7:53 am) I’m sorry, do you have a better idea?

(7:54 am) You’ve got what, three hours to waste?

(7:54 am) At least if you’re sleeping you can’t be abusing me.

 

(7:54 am) Not everything is about you, Steven.

 

(7:55 am) Sam says you’re right.

(7:56 am) (…)

(7:57 am) (…)

 

(7:57 am) I can see you typing.

(7:57 am) 🖕

 

(7:58 am) Would it make you feel better if I said that Sam’s concerned for you?

 

(7:59 am) Did he say that?

(8:02 am) STEVE did he say that he was concerned?

(8:02 am) Does he think I’ll do something wrong?

(8:03 am) Or like he has advice

 

(8:03 am) (…)

 

(8:04 am) Steve I swear to god.

 

(8:07 am) We were figuring out breakfast.

(8:08 am) He just said he hopes it goes well.

(8:08 am) ‘He’s doing that today? Good luck.’

(8:08 am) And that he hopes it’s not like the first time you came here.

(8:09 am) And then he made a face like 😐

 

(8:10 am) Fuck why did I ask.

 

(8:10 am) Not in a bad way.

 

(8:11 am) I’m blocking your number.

 

(8:11 am) Then who’ll text you?

 

(8:12 am) Emergency response systems and Jesus himself

(8:13 am) Just to say ‘Good call on blocking that guy. He really is a punk.’

 

(8:13 am) 😂

 

(8:13 am) Fuck you

* * *

 

He lies down until nine, just to prove that he can, that he isn’t a ball of nerves this close to collapsing, and he isn’t sure who he’s proving it to, just that he has to do it.

* * *

 

 

He sits in the shower for an hour.

* * *

 

He makes himself an omelet filled with leftovers that isn’t terrible but _is_ an experience.

* * *

 

And then he sits on the couch with his shoes on and his hair brushed, waiting for an acceptable time to leave.

* * *

 

On the train, Bucky tries again—he pulls out a pen and a small sheaf of papers smuggled from the library, creased from his jacket pocket. _Dear Sam_ , he starts, and starts over, and starts over again.

He writes five versions before he gets to his destination. As soon as he gets off the train, he throws the first four away.

* * *

 

_Sam,_

_I learned how to write in print for your sake entirely, so you’re welcome. I just want to apologize for last week. I want to apologize for lots of things. It’s hard to say, though. I don’t think ‘I’m sorry,’ holds that kind of weight. But I guess it’s a starting point, so: I’m sorry._

_I’m sorry._

_I’m sorry._

_I’m sorry._

_I’m sorry I said you need to learn how to read. Your illiteracy is your business._

_BB_


	4. Chapter 4

Bucky almost turns around. He has an out of body experience—he can see himself, on the nice gravel path up to the Proctor’s door, and he can see how scruffy he looks, how out of place. And he knows that he’s done his best—he’s wearing clean, dark jeans, and his hair is tied and brushed back. His beard and nails are trimmed. He isn’t hiding; he isn’t on the run. He’s done everything he can for himself, and still he doesn’t feel like he’s allowed to be here, like he’s allowed to take a step into this regular family home. He feels like, best case scenario, he’ll break Jaime’s heart and ruin his and her mother’s memory. He knows how good he is at breaking things.

When he tucks his hands into his pockets, they come up against his letter to Sam. He smiles—that’s something, he thinks. Proof that he can do something good, even if that something good is just making fun of someone he’s not sure won’t hate him more for it. So he goes up the walk.

Rings the bell.

Waits.

Rings it again.

And that’s something he hadn’t considered—what if they changed their mind? What if they forgot? What if he was at the wrong house? He looks at the house number and tries to remember what he’d written down. He knows it’s the same, but what if?

The woman who comes to the door is small-framed and gray haired. When Bucky looks at her, he realizes that he hadn’t considered that the most _likely_ scenario was his own heart breaking, but when he has to take a step back, he realizes that predicting doesn’t do shit.

“Sorry,” he says automatically. “Are you Jaime Proctor?”

“I am,” Jaime says, and squints at him through gold-framed glasses, round and perched lazily at the end of her nose. “And you’re the time traveler?”

“No,” Bucky says. “Just a little late.”

“How ridiculous,” Jaime says. And smiles.

 

* * *

 

Bucky doesn’t cry, which is the most astonishing thing about the afternoon. Jaime brings chicken salad sandwiches out to her little sitting room and ushers Bucky into a small wingback chair that reminds him of one his father used to have, and when he mentions it, Jaime gets this _look_.

“You know,” she says, “I had my doubts. But that chair was my mother’s. And before that, it was my grandfather’s.”

And that brings Bucky closer than he likes to waterworks, but he sends his eyes to the ceiling and breathes very, very deeply.

“I can’t imagine how weird this must be for you,” he says to the popcorn plaster. “I really can’t. The last time I saw Becca, she was a teenager.”

“So you never met my father?” Jaime asks.

“No,” Bucky says. “That would’ve been a few years after I…” When he feels something against his hand, he looks down again. Jaime’s standing by his chair with her hand against his, and when he looks from it to her, she looks only kind, maybe a little sad.

“I’m sorry you missed so much,” she says. “Would you like to see my photo albums? And then maybe you can tell me where you’ve been.”

“No,” Bucky says. “I mean—yes, of course, but this isn’t how this was supposed to go. I should be apologizing to you.”

“For what, honey?”

“For,” Bucky says, and, remarkably, draws a blank. Jaime laughs, but it’s gentle.

“It sounds like it might just be a sorry situation. Let me get the albums. You get started on the sandwiches—I’ll only be a moment.” And like that, she’s gone.

Bucky doesn’t know what he was expecting, but it wasn’t this. This is… nice. Comforting. Jaime’s house is cozy—there’s a floral cover over the couch, there’s a cheerful green rug underneath the coffee table, the TV in the wall unit looks a decade older than the one at Sam’s place, and there are architecture and design magazines stacked in the shelf underneath it. There are portraits set all along the walls—one of two teenagers hugging by a lake, the same tousled hair and broad smiles—her kids, he thinks. There’s a marriage photo, Jaime thirty years younger and a man who must be Mr. Proctor. Graduation pictures, extended family gatherings, birthday parties, all evidence of a full life, and Bucky is suddenly, ferociously happy that he came here, that he called her, whether he gets to be involved or not. It fills something in him, knowing that this is what Becca left behind, that Jaime’s been happy, that her kids are too. That they all get to live like this.

“Mom, I’m—who the hell are you?”

Bucky already has his hands up, half waving, half letting whoever’s coming in know that he doesn’t have a gun out. He puts his left hand down quickly; he was lucky enough that Jaime hadn’t noticed it. No need to tempt fate.

“Bucky,” he says, and holds his hand out for the woman in the doorway. He smiles. She doesn’t. He stops. Puts his hand down, too. Feels like a fool.

“Where’s my mom?” she asks, and this, he realizes, must be Kim. She’s taller than he would’ve expected, probably has a good foot on Jaime. Her hair is long and brown and messily bunned at the top of her head. Her eyes, narrowed at him, suspicious and angry, look like her mother’s, and like Becca’s before her. It makes him smile again, for all that this is clearly and totally the wrong choice.

“Looking for a photo album,” he says. “I’m—”

“I heard you the first time, thanks,” she says.

“Kim, right?” he asks. “Do you want to sit? To wait for her,” he continues quickly. “She shouldn’t be long. I’m assuming.”

“Mom!” she yells, so loud up the stairs that Bucky’d swear some of the paint trembles off of the walls.

“Oh, there’s no need to yell,” Jaime calls back—quieter, Bucky notes, and yet still _totally audible_. “Bucky told you where I was. I’ll be down in a minute. There’s sandwiches on the table.”

Kim rolls her eyes. “My bad for wanting to make sure you weren’t murdered by a creepy telemarketer.”

“Kim, he’s right there!”

Bucky sits back down. When Kim walks over, it seems more like she wants to get off her feet than she wants his company; she drops onto the couch in a huff, and only rises long enough to snatch a sandwich from the pile.

“So,” she says, and takes a bite that’d put Steve Rogers to shame. “What’s your pitch?”

“My pitch?” Bucky asks, pulling his own sandwich free.

“Yeah,” she says. “You know—how are you gonna convince my mom to give her _long lost cousin—_ or whatever you’re passing yourself off as—money?”

Bucky bristles. “I’m not a con artist.”

“Wow,” Kim says. “I almost believed you.”

Bucky stares at her, but all she does is stare back, completely unfazed. He remembers when people used to fear him. God, but the world’s changed.

“Okay,” he says. “You’ve heard of Captain America.”

“Sure.”

“You know how he was frozen in the Arctic?”

“Okay, I know that that was a _comic book_ series.”

“No,” Bucky says, “I mean, I don’t know, but it’s also true.”

“And how do you know that, con artist?”

“Because Steve told me so!”

“And who the hell is Steve?”

“Steve Rogers! Captain America!”

“This is a really lame premise,” Kim says, and grabs another sandwich. “Please, continue.”

Bucky takes a breath, which he needs, and counts to ten, which he needs to do twice. “My name is James Buchanan Barnes. I was—”

“Captain America’s sidekick,” Kim says, sounding supremely bored. “I know. I read the books.”

“Have you been to the Smithsonian exhibit?” Bucky asks, exasperated despite his best efforts.

“I haven’t,” Kim says.

It’s a relief when Jaime comes back downstairs, even if she looks a little pale; Bucky had expected disgust, maybe, or disappointment, or anger, but he hadn’t been prepared for complete dismissal. Maybe it’s a good thing, he thinks; surely if Kim doesn’t believe the Captain America hype, she won’t be inclined to believe anything about the Winter Soldier, either.  

But a con artist? That’s new and humbling.

“Kimmie,” Jaime says, and drops an album on her daughter’s lap, who accepts it with grace and limited grumbling. “He’s telling the truth.” She has a photograph in her hands. It’s old; one of the ones they took of him and Steve at the front, he thinks. He’ll never forget that uniform.

“Look,” Jaime says, and hands the photo to her. Kimmie looks at it, unimpressed, and then at him, even less impressed.

He can see the moment it almost—almost—clicks.

“A lot of people look like old pictures,” Kim says. “Keanu Reeves. Daniel Radcliffe. There’s…whole communities…on the internet.” But her eyes are getting wider, a little more horrified. “This isn’t true.”

“Before Steve nose dived into the ocean like an idiot,” Bucky says, “I fell off a train.”

“I remember that story,” Kim says, a little breathlessly. “Mom—they told it to us in history. For, like, all of elementary school. You were fighting a train full of Germans.”

“Well,” Bucky says. “More or less.”

“He took a bullet for Captain America,” Kim says.

“Not quite,” Bucky says. “We were both getting shot at. I covered him, and got blasted out of the train and, um, a couple hundred feet down.”

When Bucky looks up, they’re both looking at him with different degrees of horror. In for a pound, he figures, and rolls up his sleeves.

“That’s how I ended up with this. More or less,” he says again, because that’s easier, isn’t it? Not whitewashing his history, but edging around it. He’s never had an opportunity like this, to say only what needs to be said. He’s never gotten to spare anyone’s feelings. He likes it; likes knowing they’ll remain lightly horrified, instead of mortified and miserable.

“But how did you survive?” Jaime asks, like she’s afraid of the answer. She sits down next to Kim, hard, like her knees have given out on her, and Bucky has never known so clearly that he was doing the right thing.

“Well,” he says, and turns his history into a children’s book, full of mad scientists and capers, brain-washing and heroics. He sanitizes the torture and the mutilation, stays away from the death that only brought more death, and focuses on victories. And when he’s done, he asks, “Remember the news, a few months ago?”

“Holy shit,” Kim says.

“ _Kimberly_ ,” says Jaime.

“HYDRA lost, is the important thing,” Bucky says, and mentions a few more important things, so that when Jaime says, “Not Secretary Pierce!” Kim says, “ _Fuck_ Secretary Pierce,” and Bucky didn’t know. That telling the truth could feel like this. That they’d listen to him like this. That he could smile after explaining something like his own bloody history. It’s the lightest he’s felt in months, years, a century.

 

* * *

 

He goes home with leftover sandwiches and a plan to return on Sunday. Even Kim gives him a hug on his way out the door—“If you’re a con artist, you still deserve this, because that was a hell of a story”—and lets him know she’ll see him too. The lightness follows him home, follows him to bed, follows him the next morning when he goes for a run and takes himself to breakfast. He didn’t know it could be like this, is the thing, and when he shows up to Sam’s it’s unintended and unwarned, but it’s a lightness that needs to be shared, so he comes bearing donuts.

Sam answers the door, and Bucky says, “Hello,” right before he clocks the bruises around Sam’s throat and swallows the rest of his words.

Sam rolls his eyes at Bucky’s expression and opens the door the rest of the way. “Steve,” he calls, and his voice sounds as damaged as his neck looks. “Your boy.”

“What the fuck happened?” Bucky asks.

“I walked into a wall,” Sam says.

“Yeah, well, it looks like you almost didn’t walk away.”

“Buck!” Steve says when he gets to the door, a little breathless. His hair is wet like he just finished showering, and his shirt is sticking to him a little because of it. And he’s smiling like his left eye isn’t purple and swollen most of the way shut. “Hey—I didn’t think you were coming today.”

“What the fuck,” Bucky says.

“Are those donuts?” Steve asks.

“No,” Bucky says, and moves them out of Steve’s greedy hands. “Not until both of you tell me what the hell you’ve gotten up to.”

“A bar fight,” Steve says.

“Yours? Maybe,” Bucky says. “If you went to bars, and if there was someone at the bar more juiced up than you. But I don’t think people tend to get throttled in bars.”

“D.C., man,” Sam says. “You never know.”

“If there’s something going on,” Bucky says, and he can feel his lightness seeping away; he doesn’t try to catch it. Nothing like that can last, anyway. “I can help.”

“I’m gonna go grab a scarf,” Sam says. “Then I’m heading to—”

“Wait,” Bucky says, and drags the letter out of his pocket. “Here.” Sam opens his mouth, but before he can say anything, Bucky says, “It’s not cursive!” a little too loudly. So instead, Sam raises his eyebrows, takes the paper from him and walks down the hallway to his room.

“Smooth,” Steve says.

“I’m going to eat all of these donuts,” Bucky says. “It is a _whole dozen_ and you do not deserve _one_.”

“But I’m injured,” Steve says, so Bucky punches him in the shoulder, hard enough to make it truer. While Steve does his dramatics on the couch, Bucky takes a detour through the kitchen to drop the donuts on the counter, and when he turns around—after pulling one out and shuffling them all around so it doesn’t look too much like it—he finds Sam, there, caught mid-juice caper.

“Hi,” Bucky says automatically, and feels like an idiot.

“Why are you writing me letters?” Sam asks. “That’s really weird, man.”

Because he doesn’t have an answer, Bucky pulls down a glass for him and hands it over, keeping his eyes on anything but those bruises. They make him feel angry; useless. If they’d had another pair of hands there, would that hand have made it around Sam’s neck? If they’d called him, he would’ve answered.

Right?

“Thanks,” Sam says, more warily than seems appropriate.

“Donut?” Bucky asks.

“Nah,” Sam says. “Sticking to liquids today.”

“Have you got an ice pack?”

Sam makes a face. “Yeah, but that’s more annoying than the…”

“Near fatal injury? Yeah, I bet.”

“Shut up,” Sam says, but he’s smiling. “Did you call?”

“No, but I would’ve if I knew you and Steve were going to do something like…whatever you did that resulted in _that_.” It takes Bucky a minute to realize he’s answered the wrong question. But Sam’s smile has gone soft for it, and it’s a little embarrassing, but mostly it’s nice. “You meant…”

“I meant your niece, yeah,” Sam says. “But I appreciate it.”

“I did,” Bucky says. “I called. They invited me over, and I went for that, too. Um, it was good.”

“Just good?” Sam asks, and unless Bucky is way, way off base, Sam is teasing him. He feels himself go a little squirmy inside, like some of that lightness is creeping back in, and it feels bad, kind of, to be enjoying himself like this when Sam is so clearly in pain, his voice raspy and his breathing more labored than it should be.

“They’re amazing,” Bucky says. “I’m seeing them again next week.”

And maybe they’ve been smiling at each other for too long, because Sam clears his throat, and that’s it—Bucky says, “I’ll get you more ice,” Sam says, “No, it’s fine,” Bucky says, “I think it’ll help,” and Sam rolls his eyes, takes a glazed cinnamon twist to go, and twists right out of there before Bucky can go into the kind of nurse-maiding he trained his whole pre-army life for.

Bucky sighs. At least there’s donuts. He folds one all the way into his mouth, takes another one his hand, and goes to sit next to Steve.

Steve’s fallen asleep on the couch.

Bucky sits on top of him and almost chokes to death laughing when Steve can’t manage to get a good enough grip on him to squirm out from under his weight.

And somewhere, Sam has his letter.

It’s a good day.


	5. Chapter 5

The next month is having apartment dinners with Paul, the cheerful stoner. It’s weekends at Jaime’s, where she cooks and tells him embarrassing stories about her children—Scott, who lives in London, and Bucky meets once via a Skype connection sketchy enough that he’s pretty sure Scott leaves confused, and Kim, who has a tendency to arrive late, but just in time to interrupt before the best parts—and longstanding family tales about her mother and father. It’s going to events at the library and making friends with Sarah, who starts making fun of him to his face, directly and vocally instead of subtly. It’s D.C. once, maybe twice a week, only a few words with Sam at a time—who smiles more and stares less, though he never stays—but hours with Steve, who still lies about the things they get up to when Bucky isn’t around.

And in between are the letters.

_Dear Wilson, Dear Sam, Dear Falcon_ . _Sincerely, With Pity, Upsettingly, Confoundedly, Yours_.

It’s almost daily, and Bucky might be embarrassed with himself if he weren’t getting better at it, but he is, and he knows he is because every time he sits down, it takes less thought before the pen is scrawling—and then a little more thought to straighten his letters and disconnect them.

Jaime invites him to lunch and he writes,

 

_Dear Sam,_

_One day, you and Steve will have no choice but to tell me the truth, and when that day comes, I’m going to act very unsurprised, because it’s frankly bizarrely obvious that you two are doing illegal, violent, and potentially great things without me, and I don’t mind being left out, but I’d like to know if I should be prepared._

_You asked me if I was bringing trouble to your door—can I offer to bring help, instead?_

_I’d like to bring something good._

_Steve’s Friend,_

_Bucky._

 

And over lunch, Jaime says, “You seem like you’re in a good mood.”

“Yeah, well,” Bucky says. “I love roast beef.”

“What a strange thing to say,” Jaime says, and Bucky knows she’s not wrong. “But as I was saying: when Kimmie said she was planning on buying the dress, I was so happy.”

“Sure,” Bucky says, because he has definitely been listening this whole time.

“You never really know with these weddings, do you? Anyone could wear a suit, anyone could wear a dress—but she looks so nice in a boat neck, doesn’t she?”

“I,” Bucky says. “I don’t actually know.”

“That’s alright!” Jaime says, and looks thrilled, like this is all she’s been waiting for, which feels great for Bucky, who often does not know what is going on. That’s what happens, he supposes, when you’ve missed a lot, but the people you’re with have folded you in like you’ve always been there. It’s warming, it’s beautiful, and god is it confusing.

“Here,” Jaime says a few minutes later, when she’s switched her glasses to her reading ones and have them pushed into place, and has finally found the photo folder she needs. “Look—here we are at the boutique from a few weeks ago.”

And Bucky says, “What.”

Because Bucky does not know a lot of things, but he knows that that? Is a wedding dress.

 

* * *

 

 “Here,” he says when he gets to Sam, shoving the letter into his chest and shoving his way into the house before his manners catch up to him. “Now, _help_.”

“Okay,” Sam says, and moves to leave, as per usual, but Bucky, in a move that surprises even him, catches him by the sleeve. His eyes narrow, pointed directly at Bucky’s whirring fingers.

“Um,” Steve says, whose arrivals are as perfectly timed as Kim’s.

“Kim,” Bucky declares, “is getting married.”

“Congrats,” Sam says icily. “Now if you’ll excuse me—”

“Just—not today. Please,” Bucky says, and he wouldn’t ask, he wouldn’t but this is something big and real and significant, and he wants both of them to tell him what the fuck to do, and Sam is the only one in the room with any functional brain cells, and he wants him to want to be here, so he asks. “Please.”

“Let go of me,” Sam says, but when Bucky does, he takes a breath. And tucks Bucky’s letter into his jeans pocket. And Bucky, who refuses to believe he’s a blusher, looks at Steve.

Who’s looking at the both of them and smiling a very obvious kind of smile.

“So what’s the issue?” he asks, a beat too late, prompted, Bucky assumes, by the blind panic on Bucky’s face.

“Jaime realized yesterday that she forgot to actually tell me about it. Kim, who I don’t think would forget something like that, did not invite me. So I’m not invited, right? Fine, cool. Except Jaime invited me, and invited you, Steve, and we’ve both got plus ones, so obviously Sam’s coming—”

“Not obviously,” Sam says, but Bucky ignores him.

“But the thing is, I haven’t seen Kim this week, and I don’t want to spring that on her, because it’s her _wedding_ , and they’ve only known me for a couple weeks, and I don’t know much about weddings but I’m pretty sure you can’t switch around guest lists or _whatever_ in a day, so I don’t know what to do, and _help me_.”

“She invited me?” is the first thing Steve asks, his voice small and a little bashful, and Bucky hates to do this, but—

“You’ve never even met Kim.”

“Ouch,” Sam says.

“No, of course,” Steve says quickly. “Obviously I wouldn’t go. God, what would that look like.” And he laughs, and boy does Bucky feel like an asshole.

“But you could come to lunch,” he offers, weakly.

“No thanks,” Steve says, just as weak.

“It’s funny,” Sam says, “it’s almost like you could call Kim and ask her.”

“Ask her,” Bucky repeats. “Ask her to invite me to her wedding?”

“Ask her if she knows her mom is running around inviting people to her wedding,” Sam says, and goes to sit next to Steve—who looks depressing—but more importantly sits in the same room as Bucky, like he’ll be staying for a little while, which is exciting, and Bucky is an asshole.

“Christ,” he says to himself.

“Do you have her number?” Steve asks, and slumps a little when Sam nudges his shoulder against him. Smiles.

“I can get it,” Bucky says, and sits on the loveseat opposite them. He wonders, and not for the first time, if their relationship is more complicated than whatever he usually thinks it is. But Bucky, in general, is not good at asking. Asking Sam to stick around was enough for his monthly quota; asking Kim was going to be painful. Asking this? A bullet to the foot.

“Then get it,” Sam says. “You never know, with families—sometimes the event is super orderly, sometimes someone does all the inviting, order be damned. If Jaime’s invited Kim’s sixth-grade teacher and her old pastor, you’re probably fine.”

“It’s priest,” Bucky says, already half-checked out, his phone up and scrolling for Jaime’s number. He texts to ask— _Could I have Kim’s number? Want to send her my congratulations._ “Catholic,” he says, like the silence might’ve been waiting for him to fill in that blank. But Sam and Steve are muttering to each other, low and intimate in a way that makes Bucky feel like maybe he should leave. Like maybe this is why Sam keeps taking off, because this is what they’re like together. Because Bucky’s in the way.

His phone pings. _Of course! Here honey is her number I am sending the contact it should show up with her name. It is the contact._

And there it is.

“Okay!” Bucky says, a little too loud, maybe to interrupt Sam and Steve, maybe not, who’s to say. “I have the number. What am I writing?”

“I thought you loved writing messages to people who aren’t expecting them,” Sam says drily. Steve, who is a traitor, laughs.

“Well,” Bucky says, “well,” and has nothing else to say.

“I’m kidding, man,” Sam says, and his eyebrows jump three inches. “You’re really worried about this.”

“It’s a wedding,” Bucky says. “I thought I missed everything, but. A wedding.” It’s big; it’s significant. It’s family history in the making. And if Kim asks him not to come, of course he won’t. Of course he’ll stay far away, send a gift if she wants that, coo over the pictures with Jaime later. But god, it’ll burn.

“Then you have to ask,” Sam says, and it’s the most gently he’s ever spoken to Bucky, and Bucky can’t deal with that, either, so he stands up and starts moving, pacing the room, from the couch to the kitchen to the door and back again, putting down letter after letter until he has something he’s okay with sending.

“Okay,” he says.

“What’d you send?” Steve asks.

“Hey, Kim. This is Bucky. Your mom gave me your number,” he reads. When he looks up, both Steve and Sam are staring at him over the back of the couch, competing looks of disbelief on both their faces.

“That took a couple minutes,” Sam says.

“Yeah, well—” His phone pings. “She answered.”

“This is going to be what today is like,” Steve says. “This is really—wow. I’m gonna grab a book.”

“You’ll pay attention!”

 

* * *

 

**Kim (Not Kimmie)**

(2:15 pm) Hey, Kim. This is Bucky. Your mom gave me your number.

 

(2:16 pm) ok hey I’ll save it 👍

 

(2:16 pm) Thanks.

(2:17 pm) She also mentioned you were getting married.

(2:17 pm) Congratulations.

 

* * *

 

 

“You’re sure I shouldn’t have used an exclamation point?”

“You’re an adult,” Sam says.

“Adults can use exclamation points,” Bucky says, a little insulted.

“Of course,” Sam says solicitously, “but adults should absolutely not be fretting over whether or not _they should have used an exclamation point_.”

“Don’t make fun of me,” Bucky says. “I’m in a delicate state.”

“Delicate state period or delicate state exclamation point? Those are two different states.”

“I hate you,” Bucky says.

“I’m just trying to be sensitive!”

“I hate you,” Bucky says, and means it less and less every time he says it.

 

* * *

 

**Kim (Not Kimmie)**

(2:18 pm) Thanks!

 

* * *

 

“She used one,” Bucky grumbles, and Sam, from the kitchen, where he went to make a production of microwaving a bag of popcorn.

“But did she have a meltdown over it?”

“I hate you,” Bucky says, and adds, “Exclamation point!” and he can hear Sam laughing, because it turns out he’s terrible at stifling it.

 

* * *

 

**Kim (Not Kimmie)**

(2:19 pm) I wanted to let you know that I was over at your mom’s house yesterday and when she brought it up.

She also issued me and Steve invitations.

 

(2:20 pm) Of course she did.

 

(2:21 pm) I just needed you to know that I’m not taking her up on that.

 

(2:21 pm) Of course you’re not lmao

 

(2:24 pm) I would love to go to your wedding, and I know that Steve is dying to meet all of you, but it didn’t seem fair 

to get an invitation from the person whose wedding it isn’t when I hadn’t even known you were getting married.

If you decide to invite me/us, it should come from you, right?

(2:26 pm) No pressure!

(2:26 pm) I mean I’m a stranger. I’ve only known you guys for a month.

(2:27 pm) The most important part is you’re getting married!

(2:27 pm) Congratulations!!!!!!

 

(2:28 pm) Oh.

 

* * *

 

“That might be overkill,” Sam says, through a mouth full of popcorn, _after_ Bucky’s already hit send. And then the, _Oh_ , comes in, and that’s great, too.

Bucky groans and slides so far into the loveseat that he’s practically a cushion, too.

“She was already on the fence, as far as liking me went,” Bucky says. She’s nice enough, every time he sees her—a little snarky, a wicked sense of humor, but the other side of that humor has always been humoring him, and everyone has their limit. “I don’t think too many exclamation points are gonna be what does it.”

“You’re not unlikeable,” Steve says, peeking over the spine of his book. Steve, who has not been helpful, but has had a great time laughing on and off at Bucky’s expense as Bucky has recited and rehearsed what he’s planning on sending, to great derision. “Just awkward.”

“Thanks,” Bucky says.

“I agree,” Sam says, but he doesn’t sound like he likes that he’s saying it, which tempers the fluttering in Bucky’s stomach a little. Then Sam says, “About the awkward part,” and the fluttering dies a slow and violent death. “You’re a little out of step.”

“I’m aware,” Bucky says.

“That’s not a criticism,” Sam says.

“Thanks,” Bucky says. “That makes it easier to hear.” Before he can apologize or feel more bitter than he already does, his phone goes off again. And beeps. And beeps.

 

* * *

 

**Kim (Not Kimmie)**

 

(2:35 pm) So I was expecting a different kind of reaction.

(2:35 pm) More ‘old army guy from the 40s.’

(2:35 pm) Because you’re an old army guy from the 40s.

(2:36 pm) But I guess you’ve been around, so. I’m not apologizing, but I’m recognizing that you’re cooler than I thought you’d be.

(2:37 pm) It does make me wonder if the rumors were tru now tho.

(2:37 pm) I’m a little annoyed that mom invited you, but I’ll have a talk with her about it. You et al are invited, sure, 

it’s not a super formal event, so we’ve got space for you and would be happy to have you.

(2:38 pm) And you and Steve might as well both come to lunch tomorrow.  

(2:39 pm) Me and mom were planning on going to the dress store on Grant Ave and then to the bistro by it afterwards. It was wedding stuff

so it was just gonna be us, but now that you’re in the know…

(2:40 pm) See you tomorrow?

 

(2:41 pm) Yes, please! And Steve says yes too.

 

(2:41 pm) Cool I’ll send you the addy.

 

* * *

 

“Steve,” Sam says, from where he’s reading over Bucky’s shoulder. “You got plans tomorrow?”

“No,” Steve says.

“Yeah, you do,” Sam says. “I’m reading about them right now.” Steve puts his book down.

“Lunch with Kim and Jaime,” Bucky says. “In the city tomorrow.”

“The city?” Steve asks, sitting up straight.

“Yeah,” Bucky says. “And it’s like a four-hour drive, so don’t leave late.”

“Oh,” Steve says, and he looks flustered, which would make Bucky laugh, were he a weaker man.

“And you’re both coming to the wedding, so start getting ready for that.”

“And do you know when this wedding is?” Sam asks.

And Bucky says, “I do not.”

He’ll ask tomorrow.

 

* * *

 

After a brief respite, wherein Sam and Bucky are in the same room and it’s fine, and Steve is happy and relaxed and not making fun of Bucky, and Bucky isn’t embarrassing himself or making things weird, after several hours of that where Bucky starts thinking that maybe everything is and will continue to be fine, Steve, right before Bucky leaves, when his shoes are on and his hand is on the door, says, “Hold on,” and that’s when things start to change a little.

Because Steve says, “Sam said I can use his car for tomorrow, so why don’t you just stay over.”

“Um,” Bucky says, and Sam, who is on the couch, a second away from turning on the TV and relaxing—because Bucky knows, right, he _knows_ Sam is warming up to him, knows it in the way that they can talk to each other, now, the way that Sam laughs at him and smiles at him and the way that today was fun, even when it was tense, but there’s _warming up_ and then there’s _warm_ , and he knows they’re not there yet—tenses.

“I mean,” Steve says, but he’s kind of slowing down, like he knows he’s said too much. “I’d appreciate the company. It could be fun, you know? Morning road trip. Plus you can save your bus fare. I’m sorry,” and it’s almost funny, how long it took him to break, “did I say something I shouldn’t have?”

“No—”

“Not at all,” Sam says tersely, and turns the TV on.

“I just don’t have anything with me,” Bucky says, as tactfully as he knows how.

“You’re a little broader than me, but my clothes would fit,” Steve says. “ _If_ that’s what you’re worried about.”

“Toothbrush,” Bucky tries.  

“Steve, you should let him go if he wants to go,” Sam says, and he glances back at them, so quickly and so briefly that it might as well have been a twitch.

“Do you want to go?” Steve asks.

“No, of course not,” Bucky says. It’s because Steve looks like he’s a step away from hurt; because Bucky hurt him earlier; because today’s been emotionally fraught and Bucky’s the one who brought them into this. It’s because Sam’s watching TV but he’s holding himself so rigid that his neck’s gonna hurt later; because Bucky’s tired, too, and the idea of crashing instead of sitting on the bus for four hours sounds divine; because he wants a few more hours with them, because he can be selfish, too.

When Steve says, “Great,” and claps him on the shoulder and beams at him, he doesn’t say anything. Not even when Sam switches the TV off. Not even when he leaves the room.


	6. Chapter 6

Bucky has never felt so fraught while dressed in nothing but boxers and an oversized t-shirt, and he is not a fan. Steve, on the other hand, is over the moon. He’s treating this like a slumber party, like the first night they ever camped out as children, a makeshift tent set up in Bucky’s family’s living room. The difference, of course, is that in those circumstances Bucky had yet to attempt to kill anyone.

They spend the first half of the evening sitting on the couch together, a movie night, according to Steve, who put on something that was probably supposed to be funny, and might have, if Steve hadn’t put Bucky in the middle, with one arm warm from Steve’s proximity, the other cold from Sam’s.

And that one makes him laugh a little because, sure, metal is cold, whatever, but Sam is sitting so stiff and aware that Bucky wishes, not for the first time, that he could take the arm off and toss it somewhere, anything to make himself look like less of a threat, to make Sam feel like less of a target.

Bucky starts yawning for effect by 8:30, maybe, after the pizza’s been delivered and devoured, after every time Sam’s laughed it hasn’t reached his eyes, after every conversation Steve’s tried to draw both of them into at once has fizzled to a stop.

(At one point, Steve says, “This is great,” and Sam’s eyebrows do the thing where they go sailing for his hairline and Bucky doesn’t smile so much as grimace, and they both take a too-big bite of pizza at the exact same time, and it’s almost synchronicity, and so ironic that when they make eye-contact—accidentally, for all that Bucky’s been trying—Bucky can see that Sam finds it funny, too, and he thinks, for a second,  _ maybe _ .

“So great,” Steve says, and smiles and smiles.)

He starts yawning and doesn’t stop until Steve finally notices and says, “Let me get you set up.”

“Sure,” Bucky says, and stands when he does, but hangs back just a second, just enough that Steve’s down the hallway when he turns to Sam. “Thanks for letting me do this. I didn’t know how to say no to him.”

“Sure,” Sam says. “Happy to have you.” When he carries the leftovers into the kitchen, Bucky takes a breath and a moment to consider before he grabbing the rest, plates and napkins, and following Sam there.

“I mean it,” Bucky says, when Sam’s back is still to him. He thinks things might be easier for both of them, this way. “I know it’s a special kind of burden, having me here, and I’m gonna make sure we’re out of here as soon as possible in the morning.” Sam sighs, but doesn’t turn around. It’s interesting, actually—he grabs tin foil, folds the cardboard and sticks it in the bin, wraps the pizza and refrigerates it, all without managing to face Bucky once. “You can tell me. If you want things to go a specific way, I mean. I mean, I know it’s a little—it’s late, so that doesn’t really—I’m sorry.”

“I have nightmares,” Sam says. And Bucky knows this isn’t about him, but god is that a gut punch.

“I’m sorry,” he says, and even his voice sounds like he’s in pain, too weak, a little breathless. “I didn’t think—I’ll make an excuse and get out of here, I didn’t know—”

“Don’t flatter yourself,” Sam says, and half-turns to Bucky, enough that he can see that he’s smiling, mirthless and small, and looks a little embarrassed, and Bucky doesn’t like that one bit. “It’s mostly old shit, but deviation from routine tends to spark things up a little bit.”

“So I’m a walking nightmare trigger,” Bucky says, and then thinks,  _ fuck _ . “Every time I come over here I’m a nightmare trigger?”

“No—”

“I absolutely keep fucking up your schedule. Oh my god.”

“Can you—” In two steps, Sam’s in front of him with his hand over his mouth, and Bucky would be irritated if he wasn’t busy being seven other things at once, predominantly _embarrassed_ and _relieved_ and _an inch away from immolation_. “Just. Stop talking. You’re worse than Steve.”

“Mrrf,” Bucky says, which sounds close to and nothing like  _ I am absolutely not _ . But Sam is smiling for real now, if exasperatedly.

“Not all deviations from routine are bad. Not all bad things happen outside of a routine. My sleeping space will be a little unsettled. I don’t know what’ll happen. I might not have a nightmare. I might wake the whole house up. It’s a shitty thing to have limited control over, but it’s for me to deal with.” He lets Bucky’s mouth go—slowly, Bucky thinks, and works to keep still—but he doesn’t hide his face away again. Bucky tries not to read into it.

“I am sorry,” Bucky says.

“Don’t be,” Sam says.

“You can’t tell me what to do,” Bucky says, and Sam snorts.

“Yeah, whatever.”

“Thanks for telling me.” If Sam were anyone else, Bucky would touch him—a hand to his shoulder, a hand on the back, something. But he’s not. So Bucky goes back to the living room and keeps gathering trash, and gives Sam a minute. He’s hoping, at the back of his mind, that Sam will still be in the kitchen when he gets back to it. When he isn’t, he goes to find Steve.

His room has a queen bed just barely big enough for the both of them, but Bucky’s never been that sensitive about his personal space, and neither is Steve, and he supposes it should be strange, slotting back into intimate spaces with someone as estranged as someone can be. But when they’re changing, Bucky looks over at him, and sees the man he knows and the man he knew to be more or less the same, give or take an ab or seven.

“Do you think they’ll like me?” Steve asks in the dark, when they’re in bed and Bucky is starting to wish he could sleep.

“Yeah,” Bucky says. “Jaime’s great. Kim too. Probably less gentle than Jaime, but.”

“And what about the fiancé?”

“Never met him.”

“Maybe he’ll be there tomorrow.”

“I don’t think so,” Bucky says. “Isn’t that the rule? Bad luck to see the dress, or whatever?”

“Yeah,” Steve says. “I’ve been to so many weddings, so obviously, I know this.” Bucky kicks him, which results in a brief tussle, moderated by the fact that neither of them are particularly inclined to move from their sides of the bed and both of them have pretty firm grips on their pillows.

“Anyway,” Bucky says, after things have settled down (Steve, who cheats, decided to involve his toenails, probably drawing blood, according to Bucky, who declared Steve the loser immediately). “It’ll be good. Jaime’s heard stories about you from Becca, and I’ve told them plenty. It’s funny—neither of them have much of an interest in superheroes, aside from being grateful that they live away from Manhattan. When I brought you up the first time, Kim thought you were just the comic book character, and that SHIELD and everyone else just dressed someone up like you when they needed a figurehead. She’s been unimpressed by me this whole time. It’ll be nice to see her unimpressed by you, for a change.”

“Sounds like Becca,” Steve says, low and amused.

“Yeah,” Bucky says.

It takes a few minutes, but he can hear when Steve slips into sleep, his breathing slower, his grip on the pillow eased away. And there Bucky is in Sam’s house, the last one awake, most likely, in boxers and a t-shirt, nervous and wary and aware. If he hears Sam wake up in the night, should he do something? Wake Steve? If he doesn’t hear anything is that a good thing? A bad thing? He can still feel Sam’s hand against his face. Sam’s a little shorter than him, which he didn’t expect. He holds himself taller, Bucky suspects. He makes Bucky feel smaller—clumsy, stupid—and that’s not his fault, and it’s not, inexplicably, a bad thing. It’s exciting, maybe, in small doses.

Carefully, quietly, before he can think about what he’s doing, he slips out of bed. His jacket is folded up with the rest of his clothes, right by the window, and it has a pad of paper and a short stub of a pencil in the pocket. There’s a streetlight outside the bedroom window, and with that little bit of light and Bucky’s own eyesight, he can see well enough to write.

_ Dear Sam _ , he starts, and feels like a fool, and takes a moment to revel in it.

 

* * *

 

_ Dear Sam, _

_ I hope we didn’t wake you up. I got breakfast, because Rogers sleeps like a log and I thought some sugar might make the whole thing more bearable. I hope you slept well. I stayed up later because Rogers kicks in his sleep and snores and doesn’t share the covers, and you should tell him to his face that you know this, and then maybe take a picture and send it to me. _

_ My number is _

Bucky’s hand shakes. His stomach squirms. He wonders when good feelings turn bad; when butterflies turn into curdling. He writes out his number and feels like a teenager, and there’s no reason for that, is there? It feels almost like he has a crush, which doesn’t make any sense, because Bucky, in general, doesn’t hold with self-flagellation. But as soon as he has that thought, a voice at the back of his mind laughs at him and calls him stupid for trying.

_ I don’t know if you’re reading these. If you bother. It might look more like therapy for me than anything else, but I want you to know that I  _ _ am _ _ thinking of you when I write them. Trying to inoculate you against me, I guess. I was thinking, small doses make the real thing less worrying, or something. If it’s working, great. If it isn’t, tell me to fuck off, rip the letter in half, do what you want—this isn’t about me. _

 

It’s too much. It feels like too much. Bucky feels too much.

 

_ But if you’re ready you could also text me so my number’s there I guess. _

_ Bye, _

_ Bucky _

 

When he’s done, he folds it, writes Sam’s name across the top as usual, and slides back into bed.

It’s a long and half-sleepless night, but it feels different than the other ones he’s had. It feels full of something. Exhausting. Exhilarating.

 

* * *

 

Bucky creeps out of bed early and shuffles in and out of the bathroom and picks up donuts as soon as the shop opens, so that by the time he’s back and shuffling Steve out of bed and in and out of the bathroom, the house smells like sugar and coffee and grateful in a strange and shameful way for the things his body can get away with, like a night without sleep with no more than a irritating itch to his eyes.

He sets the letter on top of the box of donuts on their way out. And if Sam walks out of his room just as Bucky’s walking out the front door, and all he can do is wave and grin a little helplessly, all of it delirious and sugar-rushed, that’s his own problem (but Sam, his eyes still a little puffy with sleep, waves back, like his defenses are down, like he can’t think about all the reasons he shouldn’t, like he’d do it anyways).

He can always sleep in the car.

 

* * *

 

 

“Bucky,” Steve says, and then pokes him, just in case  _ shouting his name  _ was not enough. “You awake?”

“Wh—Obviously! I’m obviously awake, Steve! You made sure I’m awake!”

“That’s good,” Steve says, chipper, like someone who slept all night. “You want to listen to a podcast?”

“I hate you so, so, so much,” Bucky says, and Steve laughs hysterically.

(But when he’s done, he lets Bucky sleep. The podcast is playing in the background, but Bucky can sleep through most things; just not himself.)

 

* * *

 

 

**Unknown Number**

(6:27 am) Thanks for the donuts.

* * *

 

 

(Bucky doesn’t notice that his phone is buzzing because he’s very much asleep. Steve, at a stoplight and very much awake, does. The phone, sitting in the cupholder between them, has its messages show up across the screen. So if Steve hears it, and raises it up, and reads the message and recognizes the number, that’s nobody’s business but Steve’s. And if he puts the phone back and smiles like he knows something he shouldn’t, that’s his business, too. And if he peeks the next time it buzzes, and the time after that, well. It will eventually be Bucky’s business, but for now?  _ God  _ is Steve stocking up the ammo.)

 

* * *

 

 

**Unknown Number**

(6:31 am) I have been reading the letters.

(6:32 am) It’s still weird, in case you were wondering.

(6:33 am) You’re really bad at the send-off.

(6:35 am) But idk I guess they worked if the goal was you growing on me.

 

* * *

 

(So much ammo. So much.)


	7. Chapter 7

Walking into the bridal boutique is, in two word, a lot. There’s the overwhelming whiteness of the gowns, the veils, the sequins; the smell of perfume after perfume, bouquet after bouquet; the sounds of chatter, of crying, of laughter, of noise in its purest form, nonsensical and impenetrable.

Jaime is waiting for them near the door when they arrive, so, at the very least, Bucky is grateful that they won’t have to wade through the war zone to find them.

“When you said it was a boutique, I was expecting something smaller,” he tells her. He was expecting something quiet, something intimate—in other words, anything but this.

“Oh, honey,” Jaime says. “That’s the next one.” Bucky tries very hard to look optimistic. “And who’s this?”

“Steve,” Bucky says at the same time Steve sticks his hand out so straight and so fast that Bucky has to get out of the way or risk bruises.

“Steve Rogers,” he says, embarrassingly breathless. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Miss…”

“Jaime’s fine, Steve,” she says, and takes his hand. And Bucky is so thankful for her; she takes to Steve as quickly as she took to him, all easy smile and calm geniality, not a hint of suspicion or hero worship. And Steve, naturally, is under her thumb in a second.

“Bucky speaks so highly of you,” he says. “I grew up with your mom—well, next door. I’m sure Bucky’s—anyway. I was so happy to hear that you were living so close.”

“Well, not that close,” Jaime says. “You’re down in D.C., aren’t you?”

“Well,” Steve says.

“Alright!” Bucky says, because this is getting embarrassing. “Where’s the lucky girl?”

“Oh, she’s trying on the last gown!” Jaime gushes. “You should see her—she looks like a queen. It’s a little deep-cut for me, but—well, come see.”

“Back there?” Bucky asks, at the same time Steve says, “Are you sure?” Jaime laughs.

“You’re hardly going to be able to see her from here.”

Bucky isn’t sure what it is about the bridal boutique—a warehouse, he thinks, would be the more appropriate term—that makes him feel so out of place. Yes, neither he nor Steve are the dress type, but it’s more than that. This feels like something personal. Every space he passes through, every person with their family, with their loved ones, exchanging details with their neighbors in voices flushed with excitement, every microcosm feels like a bubble invaded and then exited, and he can’t help but feel dangerous, not to these people’s lives, but to their happiness. He doesn’t belong—he isn’t the sort of person who’s going to be engaged, is he? He’s so far away from all of this, he might as well be in space.

And then they get to the Proctors’ section, their own little bubble of space, and he thinks, _maybe_ . Kim is up on a pedestal in a dress, white and liberally draped across her shoulders, so that the top of her looks slouchy and comfortable while the bottom slinks across the floor. Her hair is tied back, her face free from all but the biggest grin Bucky’s ever seen, directed at her own reflection. And when she turns and sees them, it does change—it’s smaller, more casual, broader—but still warm enough that Bucky thinks again, louder, more confidently, _maybe_.

“Look at you,” he says, because that’s all he can do, right now.

“It’s pretty, right?” she says. “I was on the fence, but they showed me this thing they can do with the neckline.”

“Congratulations,” Steve says.

“Right,” Bucky says. “Steve, Kim. Kim, Steve. We were planning on waiting outside, but…”

Kim rolls her eyes. “Sure. Big, scary store full of dresses. Terrifying.”

“No, it—” Bucky doesn’t know how to put it into words; he grimaces. “It seemed like something the two of you might want space for.”

Kim shrugs. “We’re not all that traditional.”

“I’ll say,” Jaime snorts, and Kim laughs.

“Do you guys wanna see the headpieces?”

“You mean the veil?” Steve asks, like a fool.

“I definitely don’t,” Kim says.

It’s an hour of different decorative bobbles twined into her hair, along the neck of the gown, on her shoulders, her neck, across her forehead. For every one, Jaime and Bucky, sat together on the couch by Kim’s little viewing station, clutch each other’s hands and one or the other pretends they aren’t gearing up to tears. For every one, Steve has _artist_ things to say— _What if you canted it to the left?_ or _That one’s a little too blue for the dress_ or _That overlap? Are you sure?_ —and Kim, a hero in her own right, takes it all in stride, agreeing where she likes and rolling her eyes when it’s ridiculous. It only takes a few minutes for Bucky to realize that he’s having fun, and a few more minutes after that to relax into it, to not tense up in anticipation of something going wrong. Agents don’t bust through the door. Bombs don’t fall from the ceiling. Kim’s dress doesn’t tear. Bucky doesn’t sweat through his shirt. It’s _nice_.

It’s so nice.

 

* * *

 

The bistro though—that’s nicer. That’s sandwiches and him and Kim in matching flannels, which Jaime demands a picture of. That’s Steve throwing a chip at him when he tells the Proctors the very true story of how they met and became friends, Steve starting a fight he shouldn’t have and Bucky ending up with a bloody nose for no good reason.

“No one asked you to interfere,” Steve grumbles.

“Actually,” Bucky does, and he doesn’t know if they’ve talked about this, doesn’t know if he’s told him before. “Becca did.”

“She…didn’t,” and Bucky knows that look. That’s _Steve thinks maybe I’ve forgotten everything and my brain is swiss cheese in a bad way and not just a very complicated and sensitive way_. That’s Steve trying to figure out if it’s a statement worth contradicting. But, as it turns out, Bucky knows his shit.

“She did,” he says. “She literally said, ‘oh no, Bucky, look at him. Oh no.’ And when I tried to go back to whatever I was doing, she kept doing that. Tugging at me and pointing and saying, ‘oh no, Bucky, oh no.’ She was worried. And then you hit the dust and I thought she was gonna cry.”

“So if Becca hadn’t said anything,” Steve says. “You really would’ve let me get pummeled into the dirt, huh?”

“Nah,” Bucky says. “By the time that loser swung, I would’ve come running. It’s _her_ fault that I got hit first.” He taps his left eye. He remembers how quick the fist had come, a kid too big to be starting a fight with either of them. It still feels worth it.

“Oh, my god,” Kim says, and scrambles to pull her phone out. “I’ve gotta tell Nadia. I can’t believe gram was like. Essential to the classic Barnes-Rogers partnership.”

“Why am I last?” Steve asks. Bucky absolutely notices that all of them ignore him.

“Who’s Nadia?” Bucky asks, which seems more important than Steve’s nonsense.

“Oh, my fiancé,” Kim says.

And the thing about the next few minutes is that Bucky _knows_ he’s missing something. He knows it. He can feel it. But he’s still working it out when he says, “That’s an…interesting name?”  

“Not really,” Kim says, her attention split. He watches her thumbs fly across her screen.

“Well, I’ve just never met a man called—”

It clicks before he finishes the thought, somewhere around the moment Jaime’s eyes go wide and her head starts shaking in staccato.

“Nadia,” he finishes, because at this point…

“I need a refill!” Steve says, and springs up like a demon. Jaime, whose soda cup is still mostly full, says, “Me too!” and when Steve moves to pick up her cup, she swats his hand away.

“Ah,” Bucky says, and they scurry off so quickly he can see jet streams.

“ _Ah_ ,” Kim mimics and, slowly, deliberately, puts her phone down, its face on the table. When she faces Bucky again, he feels like he’s got a spotlight in a police lineup. It is a powerful, terrifying energy. Bucky is the stupidest person he’s ever met in his life.

“Nadia isn’t a man,” he says tentatively, because that’s become evident.

“No,” Kim says. “She isn’t.”

“And no one thought to mention this, because…?”

Kim narrows her eyes at him. “Uh, you didn’t ask?”

“No,” Bucky says after a moment. “I didn’t.”

“So when I said I thought you’d react like an old man from the 40s, you thought I meant what?”

And the thing is, “I, uh. Did not think about that.”

“And when mom told you that she was _so_ happy I decided to go with a dress instead of one of the other options for _my kind of wedding_ —which I know she said, because she’s been saying that to everybody—you thought what?”

“Uh,” Bucky says. “Twenty-first century fashion sure has changed?”

“Okay,” Kim says, and folds her hands in front of her. “So go ahead. React.”

“I am,” Bucky says. “I am reacting. I _am_ ,” he says again, when all she does is stare at him.

“Uh huh,” Kim says, so visibly unimpressed that Bucky has to laugh. And when he starts, he can’t stop. “I don’t know what about this is funny,” she says icily, and that doesn’t help either.

“It’s just,” Bucky says, and he’s starting to cry, he’s laughing so hard. “It’s just, I’m thinking—Christ—we really are related.”

“You’ve lost me.”

“Yeah,” Bucky says, trying to gather himself, wiping futilely at his eyes. “That’s okay.” He holds out a hand to Kim. He’s not sure she’ll take it; not sure she won’t.

“Oh,” she says, and takes it after all. “Oh! You mean, you and Steve…”

Bucky gags. “Absolutely not. But, uh. Because it’s Steve. Not…”

“Nice,” she says, and gives his hand a squeeze.

 

* * *

  

“I loved that,” Steve says on their way back to the car. “I _loved_ that. I think they liked me, which I didn’t realize I was worried about, you know? But I don’t think I have anything to worry about. They were great. They were really great.”

“Yeah,” Bucky says, and lets Steve continue. He gets it—it’s unnerving, meeting someone whose connection to you you understand better than they ever could. But he’s a little stuck on Kim— _Kim Proctor and Nadia Khan_ , her wedding invitations had announced in a flowing, decorative script, one of which Jaime had slipped into Steve’s hands in the middle of their goodbyes—and the assumption first, that he wouldn’t, and then second, that he would, and the way he’d confounded both. “Mrs. and Mrs.,” he says to himself, mostly just to hear it.

“Uh,” Steve said, his spiraling interrupted. “Are you still working through that?”

“I told her I’d never met a man named Nadia,” Bucky says. “I’m going to be working through that for a very long time.”

“Yeah, but,” Steve says, and his eyes go dreamy again. “She’s such a sweet kid.”

“She’s like thirty.”

“You’re like ninety.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

Steve’s driving, because Steve always drives, so as soon as Bucky gets back in the car, the first thing he goes for is his phone.

And when Steve says, “Oh, shit,” and blanches before Bucky can open it, he knows something’s gone sideways.

“What do you mean ‘oh shit?’” Bucky asks.

“I forgot,” Steve says, a little miserably, and gestures at Bucky’s phone. And that feels great.

 

* * *

 

**Unknown Number**

 

(6:35 am) But idk I guess they worked if the goal was you growing on me.

 

* * *

 

 

“Steve,” Bucky says, and it’s louder than it means for it to be, but nowhere near loud enough. “You read these?”

“Yes,” Steve says.

“You read these?”

“ _Yes_ ,” he says, and Steve Rogers makes sounding both guilty and put-upon into an _art_.

“And you didn’t think to tell me that _Sam texted me_?”

“I forgot,” he says.

“I can’t hear you,” Bucky says coolly. “Did you say, ‘I’m sorry, that sucked?’”

“I’m sorry, that sucked,” Steve says.

“You should be sorry!”

 

* * *

 

**SAM**

 

(4:16 pm) Sam I’m

(4:16 pm) so sorry, I just saw this.

(4:16 pm) I grew on you??

 

* * *

 

“Are you just gonna keep staring at—”

“You can just drive,” Bucky says.

 

* * *

 

**SAM**

 

(4:35 pm) Like a fungus.

 

(4:36 pm) You’ve been waiting for me to text you back just so you

could make that joke huh?

(4:36 pm) No.

(4:36 pm) (…)

(4:37 pm) (…)

 

(4:38 pm) I’m not letting you take it back.

(4:38 pm) 😊

 

(4:38 pm) (…)

 

* * *

 

Bucky could stare at his phone the whole drive, just watching the dots dance and ignoring Steve, but Steve, as true to form as ever, isn’t having it.

“So, you and Sam?” he asks, with all the subtlety of a thrown brick.

“What about us?”

“You’re getting along,” he says. “I didn’t think I’d see the day.”

“You won’t, if you keep this up,” Bucky grumbles, but Steve’s mood is contagious.

“I’m just impressed, is all,” he says. They’re only a few minutes from Bucky’s building. He wonders what Steve will think of it. Bucky likes it; it’s not home, but it’s starting to be. That’s the way most of his life is going, he realizes—the Proctors are starting to be family; Sam is starting to be a friend. “Who knew you had it in you.” Steve is starting to be _annoying_.

“I’m friendly!” Bucky says. “I’m _nice_.”

“But you’re not always this patient,” Steve says, and his voice goes gentle, like he means it. “It’s good to see. Especially because Sam—”

“Is important to you,” Bucky says. “I know.”

“Is trying to do the same.”

“Hm,” Bucky says, and turns to the window.

He does this for two reasons: the first, to make sure they don’t miss their turn. He usually walks, and from a specific stop. Coming home from this direction is weird, and how embarrassing would it be to swing past his street without realizing it.

The second, and _worse_ , reason is that his face is heating up and his mouth is doing a thing that might be a smile if he had any control over it. Because he doesn’t, he’s sure it looks like rictus; sure it’s Cheshire wide and his cheeks are red as hell. It’s embarrassing. It’s _stupid_.

But the idea of Sam trying is—

It’s—

Hm.

 

* * *

 

**SAM**

 

(5:30 pm) Whatever. Tell Steve I want my car back.  

(5:31 pm) Steve left like an hour ago. As soon as he walked into my place.

(5:32 pm) He started coughing and said it gave him asthma flashbacks.

(5:33 pm) He said the smell hit him like a bag of bricks and then Paul said,

‘oh, you want a hit?’ And he managed to look both more Catholic

and more insulted than I’ve ever seen him.

(5:34 pm) Sam it was so funny.

 

(5:37 pm) Like you weren’t all smoking in the army

 

(5:37 pm) But it was never THE DEVIL’S LETTUCE

 

(5:38 pm) Please tell me he said that verbatim.

(5:39 pm) Please tell me I get to throw that at him in conversation.

(5:39 pm) Please give me this.

 

(5:40 pm) No can do. There was a lot of ‘he smokes THAT????’ though.

(5:41 pm) Bet I could convince him that one of the ferns I’m growing

out back is that good old Devil Lettuce.

 

(5:41 pm) When he cries, send me pictures.

 

(5:42 pm) Happily.

 

(5:43 pm) (…)

(6:15 pm) Thanks

 

(6:28 pm) ?

 

(7:15 pm) For letting us use your car.

 

(7:35 pm) Np.

 

(9:18 pm) For all you put up with too.

(9:21 pm) (…)

(9:35 pm) Even if you do think all of this is weird.

(9:37 pm) Writing to you. And the rest.

 

(9:40 pm) (…)

(10:02 pm) (…)

(10:35 pm) (…)

 

(10:45 pm) Hope u sleep well.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> time! to make the boys! _nervous_.

“So,” Kim says a few days later, mid-lunch, as soon as Jaime’s stepped out to the kitchen for dessert, but before Bucky can stand up to offer his help. “What are you up to next weekend?”

“Maybe I’ll finally find a job,” Bucky says. Kim snorts, the way he expects her to; none of them have ever asked him what he does for his money, or where he gets it from, but he has a feeling Kim still thinks he’s a criminal, so it’s not like an explanation is necessary, and it’s not like she’s wrong. “Why, what’s up? You need help with something?”

“Yeah,” she says, and grins. “I need you to carry a keg.”

“I can do that,” he says. “For what?”

“Bachelorette party,” she says.

“Um,” Bucky says.

“It’d also be a chance for you to meet Nadia,” she wheedles, and Bucky doesn’t really have it in him to say no, but—

“I don’t really do parties.”

“But Uncle Bucky,” she says with a bat of her lashes, draping her hand over her heart. “I’m getting _married_.”

And Bucky closes his eyes. “What time do you need me there?” Because his eyes are closed, he can’t _see_ her punching the air, but god can he hear it.

 

* * *

 

**SAM**

 

(1:33 pm) Hi

(1:34 pm) Are you busy on Saturday?

(4:15 pm) ☹

 

* * *

 

 

**Steve**

 

(4:17 pm) Sam isn’t texting me back!

(9:57 am) You too??? Wtf is going on.

(10:35 pm) Steve.

 

* * *

 

Bucky does not steal a car.

Whether or not he borrows one is something entirely different.

 

* * *

 

He also doesn’t break into Sam’s house.

 

* * *

 

He forgot, is the thing—what it’s like to slink through the dark. The stillness that it brings into you. You have to be careful—too stiff and when you need move, you’ll be clumsy; too fluid and you’ll be caught. He’s never been clumsy. He’s never been able to afford it.

Their house is dark and empty. No visible signs of a struggle; the door is locked as it usually is, no scratches around the keyhole besides Bucky’s. There are empty plates on the dining table, a book folded open on the couch. He moves quietly, just in case, but there’s no sign that anybody else is there, which means he was right to worry—another ‘bar fight,’ another night out that they didn’t call him for. Should have called him for.

He tries their computers first, to see if he can figure out where they’ve gone—Steve’s is empty, as are the thumb drives he finds in his drawers.

Sam’s room is just as clean—and if Bucky’s surprised to find his little bundle of letters in his bedside table, he can’t think about that right now, so he ignores it (except to note that they’d all definitely been both opened and well-read).

So Bucky does what he’s been trained to do. He waits.

Over forty-eight hours since the last time he heard from either of them, he gets two messages.

 

* * *

 

**SAM**

(5:45 am) Might be a little out of commission

for whatever you’re planning. It’s gonna be a long week.

 

* * *

 

**Steve**

(5:45 am) Sorry, lost my phone!

 

* * *

 

Bucky does not answer either, because Bucky is furious. Bucky does, however, finally sleep, an uneasy nap on their couch, turned so that as soon as someone comes through the door, he’ll see them, and see them he does, an hour and a half later, the door creaking on opening, maybe due to his own rearranging of its screws.

“Ah,” Steve says when he sees him. There are wounds all over his face that look like shrapnel damage. He’s holding his right arm close to his body, so that’s some kind of dislocation.

“Ah,” Bucky says. He knows his voice is still raspy with terrible sleep, but he also knows that he looks appropriately menacing, because Steve’s face drains of color.

“So I take it you didn’t get my text message?” he asks weakly.

“Move it, Rogers, I’ve gotta sit down.” This time it’s Sam who’s got a shiner, and one side of his jaw looks puffy, like maybe that was almost dislocated, too. “Ah,” he says when he sees Bucky.

“ _Enough_ ,” Bucky says. “Both of you sit down.”

They drop their bags in the entryway and do so in a way that suggests relief, like maybe that’s what they were planning on doing anyway.

And Bucky wants to lay into them. Wants to let them know how stupid it is that they’re doing whatever it is they’re doing without telling him. That they’re leaving a perfectly serviceable weapon behind. That there’s not much he’d pick up a gun again for, but for them, it wouldn’t be a question. That not being allowed to have their back means that he’s stuck here waiting, and that that’s worse, every time. That he was worried, and now he’s angry; that he’s revving for a fight, and if he can’t have it with whoever keeps laying them out on their asses, he’ll have it with them.

But instead, he opens his mouth, and, “Stay there. I’ll make you something to eat,” comes out instead.

They both blink at him. Sam starts to say, “I’d rather just sleep—” but Steve, in his first act of wisdom since infancy, probably, puts hand on Sam’s shoulder and shakes his head.

Bucky makes omelets.

“It’s not some kind of personal slight,” Steve says, mid-eating, and Bucky, who hasn’t said anything since dropping the plates in front of them and telling them to eat, says nothing. “I mean, it’s just work.”

“Standard day job,” Sam says with a wince that belies it. Bucky made eggs for a reason, but it looks like even chewing is a bit much for him at the moment. Bucky truly, sincerely, _does not care_.

“I don’t want to do this again,” Bucky says.

“That’s why we didn’t ask you,” Steve says quickly, so sure he’s saying the right thing.

“I don’t want to do _this_ again,” Bucky repeats. “Wait for you because you’ve gone dark in the middle of something I know nothing about. I’m not a civilian. I’m not _delicate_. I’m not asking for an embossed fucking invitation. A note would be great! Something!” His breathing is elevated; his hands are shaking. For the first time in a while, Bucky thinks that maybe he’s less than alright. “I’m not even good enough for back-up?”

“Good enough?” Sam says.

“We didn’t want to drag you into any of this,” Steve says.

And Bucky says, “Fuck you.”

And finishes his fucking eggs.

And takes their fucking plates to the kitchen.

“Buck,” Steve tries, and Bucky can’t even look at him.

“He’s right,” Sam says, and Bucky can’t look at him, either. “Bucky’s right, Steve.” Maybe a peek; Sam looks an inch from passing out, but he nods at Bucky when he looks at him. “He knows too much to be treated like he doesn’t.”

“I wasn’t—”

“You were,” Sam says, and only Sam, Bucky thinks, could talk Steve down without giving an inch.

“I was,” Steve allows, and sags in his chair. “I thought that would be better.”

“And you were wrong,” Sam says, and shrugs. When he looks to Bucky, he might shoot him a smile; that, or the swelling’s gone up. “We’ll leave you a note. You’re into those, right?”

“Fuck you,” Bucky says again, and yeah—that’s definitely a smile. “By the way, for this? You two better show up on Saturday.”

“What’s Saturday?” Steve asks.

“Kim’s bachelorette party,” Bucky says from the door. “And,” he adds, with one foot out, so they can’t argue the point, “we’ll be carrying kegs for her, so make sure you’re in good working order.” He leaves to the sound of their bickering. It’s better than the alternative, the silence he came in on. By a lot.

 

* * *

 

He comes back with groceries and stays with them, that night, only heading home when it’s clear their plan is to stay put and get better. By Saturday, he’s forgiven them, mostly, and started thinking seriously about what he’s going to do with the rest of his too-long, falsely peaceful life.

Bucky doesn’t think civilian life suits him. He’s not good at being happy to be happy. It feels saccharine, too easy, a cheat—the things he can do, he needs to do, he thinks. And once the thought crosses his mind, it doesn’t leave. He starts running in the mornings, doing push-ups before bed. He looks for a gym and finds a boxing one, one that doesn’t ask too many questions when he pays his membership in cash. He’s forgotten what it feels like to let his body move the way it was built for. And yeah, he works out in gloves and long sleeves, but he hits the bag hard enough that no one pays him any attention. Exerting himself is, he thinks, something he needed; he comes home tired and sleeps long and deeply, wakes up ready for anything, has a strong appetite and has, somehow, tapped into a wider reservoir of calm than he knew he had access to.

On Saturday, Bucky maxes himself out at the beginning of the day, so that by that afternoon, when he walks into Kim’s condo for the first time, he isn’t stressed about the party. His muscles are warm, his head is clear, and he’s ready—for lifting beer, for a crowd, whatever.

Imagine his surprise, then, when Kim, at the door, says, “You’re late. The other muscle men have done your job for you.”

He finds the both of them on the largest, lumpiest, grayest, oldest looking couch he’s ever seen, both with a tall glass of beer in hand.

“Took you long enough,” Steve says, more smugly than seems necessary. He looks like he’s healed up nicely, with a few pink patches along his cheeks and no more. Sam, Bucky is amused to see, has grown his beard out to cover what Bucky assumes is particularly dark bruising, as his beard looks fuller—darker—in the places that his chin was swollen a few days ago.

“You better have done most of the work,” he says to Steve.

“Oh, don’t worry,” Sam says. “He did.” And smiles at him.

“You can help me set the food up,” Kim says. “And Nadia’s on the deck, so I can introduce you to her. And then there’s music—I’ve got my playlists set up, but I’m gonna need to figure out where to put the speakers…”

In the few months that Bucky’s known her, he’s never seen Kim nervous. But now, with her makeup and hair perfectly prepared, except for the parts of her lipstick it looks like she’s bitten off, she looks like a different person. She’s jittery, her eyes sliding all over the place, and it’d be worrying if it wasn’t so endearing.

“Who’s coming to this party?” he asks.

“Hm?” He’s tempted to snap in front of her, to capture her attention, since it seems so keen on dashing away. “Sorry—friends. About twenty, twenty-five people?”

“And you know all of them?”

“Yeah. Most of them—maybe a partner or two that I don’t.” The glance she shoots at Sam isn’t lost on him, but god does he ignore it.

“So: you’re celebrating your impending marriage with your friends.”

“Yeah?” She’s starting to look impatient. “What’s your point?”

“That this is supposed to be fun,” Bucky says, and when her eyes dart away again, he roughs his hand over the top of her hair.

“Hey!”

“Fun!” he says again. “You’re supposed to be having fun. Take a breath, have a beer, put us to work. This is all going to be great.”

“Fine,” she says, scowling at him, still working on smoothing down the flyaway strands that his metal hand may or may not have statically charged. “Jesus—fine. It’s fun, I’m having fun.” She can keep scowling; it’s not going to make him any less right, which he assumes she realizes, judging by the way she huffs but still grabs his hand to lead him through the house and out the back.

Nadia is there, dragging a table into place and arranging what look like twenty different candles, on every available surface in their small back yard. “Hi!” she says, friendly, but not friendly enough to turn away from her work. “You must be Kim’s mysterious time-travelling great-uncle.”

“Soon to be great-uncle in _law_.”

“Oh, my god,” says Kim.

“Ha,” Nadia says, and lights one of the candles—a fat yellow one that smells a little citrusy when it catches. “I mean, I already have about…seven? But adding one more to the pack won’t hurt. Sorry—”

She places it on a small table, a little farther from the group of chairs than Bucky thinks makes sense but what does he know.

“Okay!” she says, and bounds over—more cheerfully than Bucky would have assumed—to lift up on her toes and press a kiss to Kim’s cheek. “Mosquito free zone, done. Hi,” she adds, sticking her hand out to Bucky. “It really is nice to meet you.”

“You too,” Bucky says, shaking her hand. They make a beautiful couple; she’s only a little taller than Jaime, which means it still looks like Kim towers over her. In the late afternoon sun, her hair lights up browner than Kim’s reddish glow; with them smiling at each other, the sun setting behind them, he wishes he were a photographer, or some other kind of artist, anything to capture them together, like this, to save this for their future.

“So how’d you two meet?” he asks, breaking the moment wide open.

“Work,” Nadia says, “like usual. I’m an interior designer. Kim was on the developing team that constructed one of the buildings I worked on. We hit it off.”

“After I drowned one of her scale models in coffee.”

“After that,” Nadia allows.

“Wow,” Bucky says, and does not sniffle.

“So what about you?” Nadia asks. “What do you do?”

Bucky says, “Oh, you know,” and is considering knocking over a candle as a diversion when Steve comes out to join them.

“I think I broke one of the speakers,” Steve says.

And when Kim says, “Great,” Bucky is reasonably sure he can hear one of her teeth crack.

 

* * *

 

Because Kim is a patron saint of law and order and Nadia is a whirl of good humor, the party is…hitchless. It helps that it’s low-intensity; the music playing is a slightly faster-paced that usual coffeeshop mix, the hors d'oeuvres are just a meat and veg tray with a few quick baked items to supplement them, the beer is cold and the spirits are in the refrigerator, and everyone is so nice and so happy for Kim and Nadia that the whole thing feels like a late-summer dream, slow and full and pleasant. There isn’t a silent moment—the hosts flit around to draw everyone into conversation, and each pod of people blends seamlessly into the next. Bucky meets an airline attendant, a session musician, and a café owner; an actress, and electrician, and a conductor. The know the fiancées through work or squash club or marathons; they met them in college or grew up a few blocks away. It’s a whole network of knowing, an infrastructure of familiarity. He doesn’t think he could every know anyone like this—so easily, so warmly, without a history of violence. Every time he looks up and meets Steve’s eyes, or Sam’s, that’s what he sees, first, between them—something ugly to be overcome or moved past or pushed away, but that will always be there, heavy as a stone.

He tries not think about it, and lasts, mostly, two hours, three. It’s when the first round of guests have left and the others have turned to harder drinks, faster music, and a game of Cards Against Humanity that Bucky slips away, into the kitchen for a moment of quiet.    

The worst part of feeling the way he’s feeling, heavy like that stone’s found a home in the center of him, is that he can’t figure out what it is, but in the quietest part of himself, he’s afraid that it’s jealousy. That it’s Kim’s happiness that he wants a part of. That his very presence here is ruining things. And that’s not fair, he knows it’s not fair, but it’s there, bad and miserable.

Naturally, Steve catches him.

“Bucky!” he says, too loud for Bucky’s moment of silence. “We’re just heading out back. It’s hot in there.” ‘We’ is one of the architects from Kim’s firm, and a mixed bag of college friends, who carry on out through the kitchen and into the night. “Why’re you hiding?”

“I’m not hiding,” says Bucky, who is definitely hiding.

“Yeah, you are,” Steve says, and by his glow, Bucky would assume he was drunk. But if Bucky, with his knock-off off-brand version of the serum, requires ten times the drink to feel a buzz—and a buzz that wears off in a tenth of the time—then he’s sure Steve hasn’t had anything that he can feel. Which means this is him purely off of the shine of the evening—the fun, the friends, the food, et al. “And you’re making a face,” Steve says, and presses his thumb between Bucky’s eyebrows, where he knows they’ve drawn together in a pout of their own.

“I’m not,” Bucky says weakly. “I just…I don’t know how to do this.”

“Do what? Party?”

“No,” he says, but Steve laughs anyways. “No, it’s…all of it. The family thing. The party. The engagement. The wedding! Steve, I’m going to a wedding. I don’t get to do that.”

“Says who?” Steve asks, and Bucky—and he knows this is selfish, knows it to the core of his being—wants him to stop smiling. Wants him to take this seriously. To believe Bucky. To throw him out. But Steve is still smiling like Bucky’s being ridiculous, and not like Bucky is the only one making a lick of sense.

“Says anyone who’s ever read my rap sheet. Hell, my _kill list_ . I don’t get a happy ending. I get to work, and kill, and die. This is just—it feels like a blip on the radar. It feels like at any point, I’m gonna snap out of it, and things are gonna go back to the way they were. Or I’ll hurt someone. Both. This just…it’s not real. Why are you _laughing_?”

“I’m not,” Steve says, but he’s hiding it so, so badly, and Bucky wants to hit him. “It’s—okay, look. It’s not like your life is a light switch. It isn’t, oh, this is turned on, so this must be turned off, but _at any moment_ it’s gonna go the other way again. Our lives don’t make that kind of sense. Our lives don’t make sense at all.”

“Yes,” Bucky says. “This doesn’t make sense. That’s exactly my point.”

“No,” Steve says. “That _should_ be your point. Not ‘you don’t get this,’ but ‘your life doesn’t make sense, so why _not_ have this too?’”

“What the f—”

“Hey, weirdos,” Nadia says, scooting between them. “I just gotta grab the vodka.”

“Vodka sounds perfect,” Steve says. “Bucky needs some.”

“No, really,” Bucky says. “What the f—”

“Is this where everyone’s hanging out?” Sam asks, squeezing into the kitchen _too_ , like what Bucky wants doesn’t matter at all. Except Sam’s in a really nice shirt, a dark blue button up with the sleeves rolled up so his forearms are right there, well-muscled when they reach across Bucky to grab a new cup. So maybe—maybe—everything else can wait.

But Steve—who winks at Bucky and steps out back like he’s planned this—will absolutely get an earful as soon as Bucky can think of one.

“I came here for a second of quiet, actually,” Bucky says, when Nadia’s scooted back away, ice cold bottle of vodka in hand. “Not that I’ve managed it.”

“Then I’ll leave you to it,” Sam says, which was _not the point_.

“No,” Bucky says, too quickly. “I mean, it’s good that you’re here. I wanted to check in. You know,” he says, clearing his throat when it’s suddenly a little hard to speak, Sam where he is, the kitchen as narrow as it is. “After your latest firefight.”

“It wasn’t a firefight,” Sam says. He gets himself a fresh beer from the keg; Bucky definitely doesn’t watch him bend over it, and definitely is not paying attention to how nicely his shirt stretches to allow it. “That makes it sound worse than it was.”

“Your jaw could’ve been broken.”

“If it was, you wouldn’t have seen me. I’d have gone to the hospital, not back home.”

And that’s a sobering realization, one that slices through Bucky faster than an ice cold shot. “Great,” he says, and Sam must hear something in his voice, because he stands up quick, expression caught out. “So I would’ve been waiting in your house—what, for a few days, to see whether or not you’d survived?”

“Steve would’ve—”

“Fuck Steve.”

“Woah,” Sam says.

“Steve,” Bucky says tightly, careful with his volume, “can survive plenty. He survived _me_.”

“So did I,” Sam mutters. Bucky ignores that.

“ _You_ are only human. Steve can take shrapnel to the face and be fine in a few days. He can get shot full of holes and bounce back in a few weeks. _You can’t_. You could have died.”

“So what?”

“Is that a joke?”

Sam takes a drink—too long, Bucky thinks, for the matter at hand. “You don’t even know what we’re doing.”

“No,” Bucky says. “Because I was dumb enough to think one of you would tell me, and dumb enough to think waiting for your other wounds to heal—the ones I inflicted, remember?—would be better than forcing the issue.”

“Are you forcing it now?”

“You know what? Yeah,” Bucky says, “yes, I am. What are you doing? What is _so important_ that you’d risk your life for it?”

“Dismantling HYDRA,” Sam says, and takes another drink.

“Dis—you’re—you didn’t—” Bucky, in perhaps the kindest thing he’s done for himself in a long, long time, goes to Kim’s freezer, pulls out a still-unopened bottle of vodka, and takes several long, piercing pulls from its neck. Ten swallows, and he looks back at Sam. Sam, whose beard on the left side is darker than the rest. Sam, who doesn’t seem to mind it. And takes ten more.

“Okay,” Bucky says, when he’s done, and so is half the bottle. “I want to go with you.”

“Why?”

“I want to help.”

“If this is just a revenge thing—”

“I’m not doing anything!” he hisses, suddenly aware of the quiet from the other room. After a moment, the noise roars back to life—someone or other has scored a point. “I’m doing _nothing_ , while you and Steve—you need help, and I’m offering it. And besides, if it was revenge—”

“I wouldn’t judge you for it.”

“Wouldn’t you?” Bucky asks, before he can stop himself. “I mean, wouldn’t you?”          

There’s something that happens when Sam crosses the kitchen to stand beside him, leaning against the counter with him. They’re not looking at each other anymore, really, and it might feel like distancing, if Sam weren’t shoulder-to-shoulder with him, so close that Bucky can feel his warmth—not in his arm, sure, but in the rest of him.

“I wouldn’t,” Sam says. “I know you think I think the worst of you, and I’ve let you think that, really. But revenge—I mean, Steve’s an Avenger. I’m avenging-adjacent. There’s nothing wrong with a little revenge, if you’re clear-headed about it. And I’d never say HYDRA heads, shoulders, knees, _and_ toes don’t deserve it.” Bucky has to laugh; it’s a stupid joke, but when Sam says it, he’s grinning at him, and that’s a lot. Enough that he feels a little colder when the grin fades away. “Why do you care so much, man?”

“About HYDRA?”  

“About what I think,” Sam says, and that’s trickier. “About what I think of _you_. Your family, Steve, that I get, but me…”

“I did almost get you killed,” Bucky offers. It’s a weak offering, and a stupid thing to bring up, which he realizes as soon as Sam looks uncomfortable, like for a second there he might have forgotten.

“Almost being the operative word,” he says, rallying. “But I signed up for…whatever all this is. You were drafted.”

“That’s an optimistic way of putting it,” Bucky says, and has to laugh. This is the longest conversation they’ve ever had. He likes that. He likes even more that he’s settled down, the force of a few minutes ago having given way to a calm that he didn’t think he’d feel again tonight. Sam, in a weird turn of the coin, seems to be working for his words, and maybe Bucky’s taking comfort in that, like he isn’t the only one feeling weird here, the only one on the wrong foot.

“I’m not gonna apologize to you for… the way I was when you first…” He looks at Bucky, missing words.

“I’m not expecting you to,” Bucky says. “I never would. God, I’m not an idiot. I know what I put you through.”

“What I _am_ sorry for is not believing that,” Sam says. “I don’t know, I guess I figured you just wanted to wave it all away and pretend it didn’t happen. And I couldn’t imagine how you might try to fix any of… the other stuff, because it’s—it’s _decades_ of too much. And I wouldn’t wish that on anyone. Not even you,” he adds, and knocks his shoulder into Bucky’s.

Bucky is not expecting the hot bloom of sudden feeling that rockets from their little point of contact, up his neck, across his face, and right to the head, so fast he feels dizzy for a second.

“No, I,” he tries. His tongue feels like cotton. He clears his throat. “I mean, I appreciate that. But, um. Yeah, it’s—it was up to me to find a way to—to meet you where you were, if you wanted me to, and I…”

“Are you okay?” Sam asks, and _god_ but it sounds like he means it. Bucky is _going to die_ . Sam turns a little and leans in too close, and then his hand is warm against Bucky’s shoulder, his face right up next to Bucky’s trying to catch his eye. “Oh,” he says, and laughs, a little, and if Bucky’s caught—if this is what does it—he’s going to—he’s going to— “Too much honesty about feelings, too quick, huh? God, you and Steve.” And Sam laughs again, a warm, full body kind of chuckle and Bucky wishes this were five minutes ago, ten minutes ago, back before he’d made this weird _for himself and himself only_.

“Sorry,” he says, “Steve?”

“Yeah,” Sam says. “He doesn’t like talking about his feelings, either. It’s all strength, duty, stoicism, occasional corny joke. God forbid he gets personal.”

“Talks a lot but says too little,” Bucky says.

“Exactly.”

“I’m trying to—do the opposite of that, I think,” Bucky admits, and it’s worth it when Sam’s focus is on him again. They’re still too close. Bucky leans closer. When he puts a hand on the counter for balance, it finds a puddle of something cold; he ignores it. Sam’s smiling at him. “Especially with the Proctors. It just—it feels like a second chance. I don’t want to waste it on pretending any of this means less than it does.” He can hear cheers from the next room; another round one, probably Kim sweeping the floor with the lot of them. They’re a lot alike, he thinks. He’s sure Becca loved her. A part of him hopes she loved the parts of Kim that remind him of himself. Hopes that they made her miss him—or better, remember him.

It’s Sam’s hand that brings him back to himself; Sam’s hand on his shoulder, high enough that his thumb brushes his neck. Bucky tries to hide it, but he knows Sam sees him shiver—but it’s cold in the kitchen, he tells himself, the balcony door is open. There’s an explanation for everything.

“It is,” Sam says quietly. “And you won’t.”

“How do you know?” Bucky asks. They’re drawing closer to each other. He can feel it. It’s almost automatic, the way his eyes jump to Sam’s mouth. If this goes badly, he’ll tell himself it’s just to watch him smile.

“Because,” Sam says, and he’s smiling now, and they’re whispering, and Bucky wants this in a way that he’s forgotten how to process, wants this the way he wants Sam to smile at him, wants this the way he wants Sam to forgive him, to trust him, wants, want—

“Hey!” Steve says, and just like that, whatever that moment was—it buckles. Sam pulls away, his smile unchanging, and laughs when Steve barrels into him, breathless and pink-cheeked from the cool air outside. “I might be heading out in a bit.”

“And you need a DD, is that it?” Sam asks, laughing, and Steve wraps an arm around his shoulders because they can touch like that, because they’re close like that, and for a moment, Bucky allows himself to ache with it.

And then he smiles too.

“It sounds like their game’s almost done,” he says, and pretends.

“I doubt it,” Steve says. Bucky watches him press his face against Sam’s cheek, who swats at him, but doesn’t push him away. “God, you’re so warm. It’s ridiculous how cold it is out there.”

“I’m not a heater,” Sam complains. “All you’re gonna do is cool me down, too.” He puts his arm around Steve’s back anyway, and Bucky needs to leave.

“Well! I’m gonna—go back out there,” he says.

“You’re feeling better?”

“I…absolutely am,” he says, and picks up his mostly-full bottle of vodka. “Just needed some of this.”

“You, uh,” Sam says, when all Bucky wants to do is move past them and literally forget all of this. “You alright without us?”

For a second, it looks like he’s asking something different—it’s the way he’s looking at Bucky, maybe, or the way he isn’t looking at Steve, or the way his mouth moves like there are words he doesn’t have the space to say.

But then it’s gone, and Bucky can’t read, anyway.

“Nah,” he says. “I’ll walk you guys out.”

“Have fun,” Steve says when they get to the door, still beaming.

“Yeah,” Sam says, and his smile is smaller, but Bucky can’t think about that right now, so he waves his vodka-bottle hand and closes the door. And maybe he waits there a little too long, because when he turns around, Kim’s there, her arms crossed, her expression wicked.

“So that’s him, huh?” she says, a little more gleefully than Bucky thinks is actually appropriate.

“Who? Steve?” he says. “You met him already. He’s—”

“ _Sam_.” She says his name slow, like she’s relishing every extra self-inserted syllable.

“Yes,” Bucky says. “That is Sam.”

“Hm,” she says.

“Please don’t do this.”

“I haven’t done anything. And neither have you, apparently.” To add injury to insult, she plucks the vodka from his hand and takes a shot from the bottle. “Otherwise,” she says when she’s done, a little breathlessly, “he wouldn’t have left with another man, hm?”

“As your uncle and you very much _elder_ ,” Bucky says, “ _shut up_.”

All Kim does is laugh.

 

* * *

 

**SAM**

 

(1:12 am) Your bff just spent the last ten minutes throwing up.

(1:15 am) B uck sam wont let me see my phone s

(1:16 am) so I kicked him out of the barrhom!!!!@

_2 missed calls from SAM_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wish i was invited. also: drink responsibly. everclear is also very dangerous and also the stuff of legend.


	9. Chapter 9

“Hello?” Bucky says, regretfully. It’s the morning after, and he’s still in bed, playing a game on his phone. He has nowhere to be for a while, and was planning on enjoying his rest. Shame on him.

“My whole body hurts,” Steve says. “Sam’s making me do an apology tour. Your niece is a demon.”

“Oh, good,” Bucky says. “I thought you were poisoned. Drunk, then?”

“Have you heard of Everclear?” Steve asks.

“I have not.”

“Well,” Steve says, “I drank a bottle.”

“So that’s why you were…”

“I didn’t notice at the time,” Steve says, too miserably for Bucky to hold last night against him. It went better than he’d expected it to, anyway. And, not that he’d ever tell Steve, but maybe he was right; why not enjoy whatever this is while it lasts? The best-case scenario might be terrifying, but so is the rest of his life. “But god—on it’s way out? The worst.”

“Sam said you threw up,” Bucky says. “Sounded gross.”

“It was,” Steve says. “But I also? Might be sweating the rest of it out? I don’t know what this _is_.”

From behind him, Bucky hears Sam say, “It’s a hangover, dumbass,” and he has to laugh.

“I don’t get hangovers,” Steve says, still miserable. “I don’t get _drunk_.”

“Looks like Erskine didn’t budget for trashy college liquor,” Sam says. “Can I have my phone back?”

“No,” Steve says. “Bucky’s comforting me.”

“I’m not,” Bucky says. “I think you deserve it.” Steve gasps; Bucky can hear Sam cracking up behind him. “Anyway, I doubt it’ll last more than a few hours. You’re resilient.”  

“I’m not,” Steve insists. “I’m dying.”

“Give me that—Bucky?”

“That’s me,” Bucky says, like an idiot.

“Uh huh,” Sam says, and sounds amused in a way that Bucky can’t read. “How’d the rest of the party go?”

“Quietly. Peacefully. You know. Bachelorette stuff.”

“So, what, strippers?”

“No! No—there weren’t—are you making fun of me?”

“No,” Sam says, and pauses. “Yes. I—mostly I just wanted my phone back, so.”

“Oh. Well. It was good. I’m glad you two came.”

“She’s a great girl,” Sam says. “Ok. Well—”

“Goodbye?” Bucky says, just as Sam says, “Will we see you—” and they both stop, awkward, Bucky realizes, in a new and terrible way.

“Bye,” he says loudly, and hangs up.

Bucky has noticed that people talk on the phone a lot less than they used to in his day—it’s all texts and direct messaging, and he thinks this generation has figured something out because of it. It’s easier to talk to people—for example, _Sam_ —when you know you have time to edit yourself. To make sure you’re saying the right thing at the right time. To get yourself together. You don’t get that in real time. Bucky has decided that he hates phone calls. Doesn’t need them.

Naturally, as soon as he’s decided this, his phone rings again. He almost drops it because he’s expecting it to say Sam, and it doesn’t. It says Kim instead, and that’s a bigger surprise; she’s never called him at all.

“Hello?”

“We have a problem,” she says.

Bucky says, “What do you need me to do?” and he’s already cataloguing the weapon caches he has around the city, in the next cities over, where he can get a car, how quickly he can drive to her without getting pulled over.

Kim laughs mirthlessly, and he’s already getting up and looking for pants when she says, “You ever officiated a wedding?” And that’s unexpected enough that he does drop his phone.

 

* * *

 

Over Skype, Scott has a pallor that Bucky recognizes, half pain and half narcotic. “I’m so sorry,” he says, “Kimmie—”

“Don’t be stupid,” Kim says fiercely. Her hands are balled up on the kitchen table, so tightly that Bucky wouldn’t be surprised if she’s bruising her palms. Jaime, on her other side, looks like she’s close to tears. “I’m sorry we can’t be there.”

“Who’s stupid now?” When he rearranges himself on his bed, the camera jostles around enough that they can see where the long white cast skims the top of his thigh. “I shouldn’t have risked this. I just didn’t think—and I asked the doctor, but I can’t bend the leg, and—God, I’m sorry.”   

From what Bucky’s been able to piece together, it was a sport injury—a soccer game gone wrong, his shoe caught in a dip in the field when someone came in for a slide tackle, doing considerable damage to both ankle and knee. It explains the cast and Scott’s general demeanor; every other time Bucky’s seen him, he’s been cheerful. His life seems ideal—financier during the week, sports leagues on the weekends, friends and travels enough that every time he calls home, there are stories to exchange. Bucky had looked forward to meeting him, to seeing the siblings in action together. And he knows Kim was looking forward to Scott marrying her and Nadia. He was supposed to be their officiant. It was going to be beautiful.

“Can you set up, I don’t know, a mobile computer station? So I can kind of be there, even if not in person?” Scott, leaning towards the camera, obviously exhausted and in need of rest, let alone time, and probably food, is the saddest thing Bucky has ever seen.

“Of course,” Kim says. “Whatever it takes.”

“If I could—”

“We _know_. You don’t have the energy to beat yourself up on top of getting better.” Kim might be trying to be soothing; as is, she still sounds a little angry, but Bucky knows none of them—especially Scott—think that she’s mad at them. It’s an ugly situation, and it’s terrible to see someone you love hurting and not be able to do anything about it. Bucky gets it.

“ _And_ ,” Jaime says, who’s given up the ghost, and is sniffling into a tissue held in a trembling hand. “I’m coming out on the _first flight_. I can be there tomorrow.”

“Absolutely not!” Scott barks. “You can come after the wedding. I’ll get the spare room ready.”

“You’ll ask someone else to do it,” Jaime says. “And you’ll _stay off your feet_. God—do you have anyone there? I don’t know what your friends are like. I’ll call Janice; I think her daughter lives near there—Lancaster, or something—”

“Mom,” Scott says, “that’s nowhere near me.”

“—and she could drive up to you, and—”

Kim pulls Bucky aside—subtly, if only because Jaime’s pushed her out of the way to get too close to the computer screen. “Hey.”

“I’m so sorry,” Bucky says. “But he’s okay—he’ll heal, and he wouldn’t want this to upset your wedding, so—”

“Shut up,” Kim says. Her eyes are a little red at their corners. Bucky doesn’t mention it. “I have to ask you something.”

“Of course.”

“Me and Nadia, we wanted this to be a family thing. Her parents are walking her down the aisle, mom’s walking me. Scott was going to officiate. Nadia’s cousin is a baker, and they’re doing the cake. One of her uncles was a DJ in the 90s, and he’s doing the music. Everyone’s got a role that they’re pretty fucking thrilled about, because we’re really fucking lucky, but no we have no one to officiate, and I know you’re new, and I know this is probably not what you had in mind when you knocked on the door a couple months ago, but what do you think?”

Kim is still red-eyed, scowling now, like her response to stress is mostly anger. Bucky isn’t sure what to do, but he’s pretty sure agreeing would be a good first step.

“I think you’re right,” he says gently. “You are lucky. You and Nadia are surrounded by people who love you. Your wedding is going to be beautiful, even if Scott’s not there. But—I mean, he’s going to be, obviously, we’ll set up a virtual station for him, so it’ll be a little weird, but it’ll be perfect.”

“What the fuck,” Kim says, “what the fuck, no, that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about _you_.”

“What about me?” Danger sirens start to go off in Bucky’s brain. Quietly, privately, he begins to feel nervous.

“You,” Kim says, and takes a breath. “You’re weird, but you’re family. I was going to find you a place in the wedding anyway. What do you think about officiating?” For the first time since Bucky walked in the door today, she starts to smile. He has a feeling it’s because his face looks ridiculous. “Will you marry me—to Nadia?”

“Oh,” Bucky says, “oh my god,” and can’t really remember the rest.

 

* * *

 

Bucky goes to the library because that’s where Bucky goes when he panics, but what else is he supposed to do? Obviously he says yes. He can’t remember saying yes, but obviously, that’s what he did. What else would he have said? _Oh my god_ a few more times, probably. He might be a little in shock.

“Woah,” Sarah says when she sees him, and that must be a good sign.

“I need,” Bucky says, “marrying?”

“I don’t think you’re my type,” Sarah says. “Too broody.”

“Yeah,” Bucky says, and must look absolutely tragic because she starts to look concerned.

“I was kidding,” Sarah says. “I mean, I don’t want to marry you, but it’s nothing personal.”

“It’s not for me,” Bucky says, and is tempted to toss himself across her desk like a damsel in imminent distress. “My niece asked me to marry her. To her _wife_ ,” he adds hastily, when Sarah goes from worry directly to alarm. “She wants me to be the ceremony person, but I don’t…I don’t know how, or what that means. Where I’m from, a priest does that, and I’m a lot of things, but I’m no priest.”

“Never would’ve guessed,” Sarah says. “Follow me.”  

 

* * *

 

“Online,” Bucky asks, for the third time. “And it’s legal?”

“Yup,” Sarah says.

“Like, really legal? Or kind of legal in a way that people don’t ask about.”

“Really really legal.”

“But it says there’s training.”

“Ignore that.”

“I don’t know any of the _laws_.”

“Ignore that too—look, you see where it says ‘click here?’ Click it. Good. Now fill that out.”

“Do they need to know that I’m Catholic?”

“No, they—” Sarah rolls her chair away from his to look at him properly. Bucky, who does not need her seeing anything important, leans closer to the keyboard to pick at the letters. “How old are you, dude? No offense—because I’m happy to be helping—but you seem new to a lot of this. Actually,” she amends, and looks contrite almost immediately. “I shouldn’t have said that, about the age thing. Lots of people have different degrees of tech literacy, and I shouldn’t have implied that there’s something wrong with you being…on a different level, with all of that. But I’ve seen your phone, and your metal glove—I’m curious.”

“My glove,” Bucky repeats, and finishes writing his name. The form is simpler than he thought it would be. This all feels like cheating, and very, very mysterious besides. “I’m older than I look.”

“Yeah. I figured that out when you said your niece was getting married.”

“Great niece,” Bucky says, and then, “She really is. Great.”

“Okay,” Sarah says slowly. “Let me know when you’re done with all that. I’m actually leaving soon; I’m heading to D.C. for a conference.”

“Me too,” Bucky says. “Not a conference, though—visiting friends.”

“Yeah? You catching the bus?”

“Sure,” Bucky says, who, were he a weaker man—read: a man with no company—would have stolen a car. “Just let me—oh. I can’t print this.”

“Yes, you can,” Sarah says.

“No, I can’t,” Bucky says. And so it goes on.

 

* * *

 

Bucky doesn’t ask any questions when they get off at the same stop. He doesn’t ask any questions when they catch the same bus to get to the other side of the city, either. He’s having a good time with Sarah—she’s funny, she _doesn’t really understand_ what his _thing_ is, and she answers his questions without recrimination, even the stupid ones that result in answers like, “You can just turn that function off,” and “The flashlight button is the one that’s shaped like a flashlight.” So no—he doesn’t ask questions. What he _does_ do is ignore the creeping sense of dread, even when Sarah starts to pick up on it, even when they disembark at the same stop and start walking, simultaneously, down the same suburban street, even when Sarah falls completely silent a few houses away from Sam’s door.

“That’s not a metal glove, is it?” she asks quietly, when they’re at the edge of Sam’s walk.

“Um,” Bucky says.

Sarah says, “Oh my god.”

When Sam opens the door, he doesn’t say anything, and it feels like the worst kind of déjà vu. But he looks to shocked to be the same stony-faced denizen of morbid surprise. This is him soft and dumbfounded and Bucky hates himself for this—he really, _really_ does—but the first word that comes to mind when he sees him is _cute_.

“Move over,” Sarah says, and pushes Sam aside.

“Sarah!” Steve says from inside, and sounds too warm for this to be a first-time thing.

“No,” Sarah says.

“My sister,” Sam says, still a little startled.

“My librarian,” Bucky says. “I mean—not mine. The librarian. Local librarian. She helped me. We got a marriage certificate.”

“Huh,” Sam says.

“Okay,” Sarah says, flinging her bag onto the couch. “Does someone want to explain to me why the weird vet from the library is visiting you in your home, big brother?”

“This,” Sam says, and has to clear his throat. Bucky sidles into the room before Sam forgets he’s there and closes the door with him on the other side of it. When Sam _does_ shut the door without looking back at it, he’s pretty sure he made the right call. “This—that’s Bucky.”

“Steve’s old friend,” Sarah says.

“Yup.”

“Cool,” Sarah says. “Very cool. The assassin.”

“Well,” Bucky says.

“The one that almost killed you, right?” she continues, and Sarah—Sarah is almost a foot shorter than Bucky at his tallest, but he has never felt so small as when she looks at him, equal parts furious and betrayed. “You,” she says, and her voice is quieter now, but no less cutting. “You almost killed him.”

“Yes,” Bucky says, because what else can he say? It’s the truth.

“No,” Sam says, and steps in front of him. “Sarah, it’s complicated.”

“He’s been in my library, day after day,” she says. “If you’d died—he still would’ve been there, huh? I still would’ve—I thought we were friends.”

“You are,” Sam says. “I am. I’m friends with him.”

“You’re an idiot.”

“I’m not, I—” One of Sam’s hands reaches back, almost like it’s reaching for Bucky, but Bucky isn’t going to let himself hope. “It is a long, ridiculous, convoluted story—including brain washing, and I _know_ that sounds fake, but I mean, you saw his arm, right? And I showed you my wings?”

“I _cannot_ believe you, Sam Wilson,” Sarah says. Bucky can’t believe him, either. He isn’t surprised when she walks out the back door. He’s a little surprised that she doesn’t slam it behind herself. He wonders if the door’s just too light.

“I’m gonna go talk to her,” Steve says, and follows.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” Bucky says when it’s just him and Sam. Bucky has one hand on the doorknob. He’ll leave in a second—he will. He just needs to know—needs Sam to tell him, maybe—what that was. “She was right.”

“She was surprised,” Sam says. “She doesn’t like feeling left out. And she’s never been good at being the younger sibling. Our mom used to say that we came out backwards.” But he’s not looking at Bucky, is the thing. Bucky wonders if the wrong question will have him agreeing with his sister. Will have them taking several steps back.

“That’s okay,” Bucky says. “I’m gonna go, give you guys some time.”

“She’s freaked out, Bucky,” Sam says, and when he turns to face him, Bucky’s surprised to see that he looks angry. Frustrated, maybe; he can’t tell, and that makes him want to run more than anything else. “When I told her about what happened, I didn’t think—I never thought we’d see you again. Not here. I definitely never thought you’d meet each other. I might’ve made you into a bigger boogeyman than I thought you were—than I think you are now. And now she has to put that together with—with whatever the hell the two of you were up to at the library. God, please tell me the marriage certificate isn’t for you and my sister.”

“What, no,” Bucky says. “It’s an ordaining—thing. I’m ordained. I’m marrying Kim and Nadia. That’s why I came over here,” he says, and the morning feels like longer ago than the four-hour journey down to D.C., longer ago than a week, than two, than the time Bucky’s put into wearing Sam down, into working himself into a place where he can finally, finally ask for his forgiveness. “Scott can’t fly, so they asked me to officiate. I was coming to tell you guys the news. And Sarah was coming to D.C. too, so we figured.”

“Yeah,” Sam says. “Okay. I think I’m gonna go talk to her.”

“Good,” Bucky says. “Great. I’m gonna head home.”

“Don’t be stupid,” Sam says flatly. “Take a seat.” Bucky, personally, is tired of the Wilson School of Cutting Looks and how quick his body seems to be at taking their orders to heart, but now isn’t the time to question it, he figures, and so he sits down. Like a waiting room, really. There’s a book on the table in front of him and he picks it up. Reads the title. Opens it. And then eavesdrops.

“Brain-washing,” Sarah says, and Bucky takes a moment to be very grateful that Sam’s left the back door cracked. “That sounds real.”

“Super-soldier,” Steve says. “Sam can fly. The Hulk exists.”

“He’s dangerous,” Sarah says. “How do you know his brain isn’t going to snap clean again? What if he hurts you?”

“It doesn’t seem likely,” Sam says. “He writes me letters.”

The door creaks—an errant breeze. Bucky tries to turn a page so quickly that he rips it down the middle and has to tuck it into his pocket to get it out of the way.

“I know,” Sarah says. “I saw one or two of them. He’s a little nervous, isn’t he?”

“That how you knew he was a vet?”

“Yeah,” she says. “That and the fact that big, beefy, weird dudes tend to be army.”

“Hey,” Steve says.

“She’s not wrong,” Sam says.

“I rarely am,” Sarah says, and sighs, long and loud. “That was a shock.”

“You can be shocked,” Steve says, as earnest as ever. “Mad, even. But you’ve gotta know that he’s not gonna hurt you.”

“You can’t predict that. And neither can you,” she says, a little quieter, so softly that Bucky almost misses Sam’s answer.

“I know,” he thinks he says.

“God, this is weird,” Sarah says. “You aren’t even an Avenger.”

“I’m Avenger-adjacent,” Sam says. He sounds offended. Bucky doesn’t think he should be. In his experience, the Avengers aren’t particularly effective anyway.  

“ _Bucky_ though?” Sarah says. “Sad, weird Bucky who writes like a grandma?”

“The very same,” Sam says. “The first letter he wrote me was in the swirliest cursive you’ve ever seen.”

“That’s so embarrassing,” Sarah says. Steve coughs; Bucky knows what that means. He’s starting to feel guilty; starting to remember that Bucky can absolutely hear this. Bucky’s ears might be burning, but he doesn’t care. The return of Sarah’s good humor is worth it. And—

“I told him I couldn’t read cursive and gave it back to him,” Sam snickers.

And sometimes you hear something interesting.

“Meaning you can?” Steve asks, sly as anything, and so loudly it sounds like stage-whispering, even from here.

“Obviously,” Sam says. “I don’t know. I didn’t want to read it, but it was already right there, and I just—it came out.”

Sarah cackles. “Somehow, that’s even _more_ embarrassing. You panicked and told him you couldn’t read?” 

“ _No_ ,” Sam says, but it's too late.

“God, you two are a pair,” she says. “Wait— _he’s_ the guy you—”

“Okay!” Steve says, because he’s an asshole. “Let’s all go inside now.”

“No,” Sarah says mutinously. “I’m not done taking a moment.”

“If you want Bucky to grovel, you’re gonna have to go to him,” Sam says, and before they can come back in, Bucky tosses his book aside and picks up a magazine instead. That, he’s sure, will look less incriminating than a book missing half a page. And it works, except for how he notices that the magazine is _upside down_ only when the load of them troop back into the sitting room.

“I’m sorry,” Bucky blurts out immediately, and Sarah, who looks like she might’ve been planning on holding the grudge at least a little while longer, seems to give a little, and sighs.

“Do you at least have his back now?” she asks. And that—Bucky can’t answer. “When you guys go on missions, or whatever,” she elaborates, like Bucky’s just confused, and not a helpless fool. “You’re on the same side, right?”

“It’s a little complicated, Sarah,” Sam says. Bucky catches the way Steve’s glancing between him and Sam, sure he’s missed something.

“What is? He’s a cyborg, so are you—you two are a buddy cop duo in a sci-fi franchise. No offense, Steve. You can be the perky team lead.”

“I already am,” Steve says. “At least the team lead part.”

“Don’t sell yourself short,” Sarah says, and throws him a wink. “I think you’re plenty perky.” Steve’s mouth falls open, but his quickly pinkening cheeks give away just how pleased that leaves him.

“Gross,” Sam says, and like that, for the moment, the question of Bucky remains unanswered.

 

* * *

 

Dinner is peppered with questions, but is otherwise uneventful—they get Chinese food delivered and Steve sneezes every time something spicy crosses his plate; Sam and Sarah fight over the last fortune cookie; Bucky keeps his sleeve pulled over his metal hand, just enough that it doesn’t shine too much in the light, because he can see how Sarah’s eyes track it when it does.

He’s expecting, “What’s it made of?” and “Does it hurt?” but “Can you turn it backwards?” is a surprise, as is “What did it feel like, to remember who you were?” Sarah, when comfortable and familiar, is curious to the point of nosiness, but she’s so kind about it, backing off as soon as Bucky seems uncomfortable, that it doesn’t feel harmful or dangerous or even annoying, only notable.  

“You ask a lot of questions,” he tells her when she’s on her way out.

“I have to,” she tells him. “If I don’t, Sam never tells me anything.”

“Some of those things are classified!” Sam calls from the kitchen. Steve laughs.

“Listen,” he says, while they have a moment. She’s staying at a hotel downtown, put up by the conference, which is the only reason Steve isn’t out on the couch; Bucky can’t help but feel like, if he weren’t here, that’s the arrangement they’d fall into. It’s obvious she’s been over before, and that it’s a set-up that’s comfortably in place. Being a source of disruption prickles at him. “I’m sorry. This should’ve been a nice trip for you. I’m sorry that I messed it up. And I’m sorry about Sam, obviously.”

“Look, you don’t strike me as much of a scary assassin type, at the moment,” Sarah says. “But if you ever decide you’re up for being that again, I think having you at their six, that wouldn’t be too bad a thing. Steve’s as supersoldier. Sam’s only human, and so are you. You could help each other.”

“Sure,” says Bucky, who is only kind of lying. It’s a funny time to realize they’ve left some things out, but he thinks he likes it better this way, anyway.

“Good,” Sarah says, like they’ve decided something. Bucky isn’t convinced that they have, but he isn’t about to correct her. Not when she pauses at the door to turn back to him—to hug him, slow enough that it’s projected, quick enough that he can’t figure out what to do about it but pat her on the back a few times. “You’re still really weird,” she says, and takes off.

“She’s coming back for lunch,” Sam says from behind him, and Bucky’s surprised to see him, a little, still too caught up in the hug.

“I think she agrees with me,” Bucky says slowly. “That I should be out there with you.”

“You got out,” Sam says, but it’s not a disagreement. “That deserves a second thought.”

Bucky shakes his head. “I’m stagnant. This is…nice, but it’s not real. I want to be doing something real.”

“Go to school,” Sam says. “Take up a trade. Learn a language.”

“Je connais plus que tu ne le penses,” Bucky says. “And anyway, I know what I’m good for.”

“You’re good for more than a fight,” Sam says. And for a second, Bucky almost believes him.

“Fine,” Bucky says. “But I’m still good for a fight.” Sam looks at him. Bucky wonders what he sees. This feels like 1942, fighting for a cause, joining up for the right reasons. He doesn’t know how to say that he’s fighting _for_ something now, not fighting just to fight, not fighting just to die. Fighting to stay alive, maybe, fighting for the life he’s built here, family and friends and a reason. He wants to write this to him, wants to text him a string of emoji, wants to write something so ridiculous in cursive that he has to admit he lied to him.

“You’ll have to talk to Maria,” Sam says, and adds, “Ex-SHIELD,” when Bucky waits for an explanation.

“Okay,” Bucky says.

“And not til after the wedding.”

“Fine,” Bucky says. “I’ll be too busy learning how to marry people.”

“You’ve gotta stop saying it like that,” Sam says.

A clatter behind them makes both of them turn around. Steve’s there, dish gloves still on, the wand having fallen to the ground in front of him. He’s staring at them like he’s heard enough and is maybe surprised that he’s missed the lead-up.

“So,” Bucky says, and all Steve does is blink at him. “I’ve got news.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> who saw it coming! i did  
> man imagine making someone a minister and then finding out they almost killed your brother i think id lose my mind
> 
> (also: bucky says, "I know more [languages] than you think.")


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ding dong ding dong wedding bells are ringing

The day of the wedding, Bucky is so nervous that he’s nervous he might ruin his pants. Kim? Fine. Nadia? Fine. Sam and Steve—who arrived with Sarah as his plus-one—so fine that a part of Bucky is convinced that they mostly showed up early to make fun of him. It’s a beautiful day—the ceremony is happening just outside of an old dance hall, with the reception inside. There are tents set up outside, folding chairs ready, floral displays fresh and colorful. There are streamers in the dance hall, purple, the only accent colors both of the brides agreed on. Bucky has it in his vest and his tie, and the flowerchild, Nadia’s nephew, has a basket decorated with large, wide-petaled purple flowers, with smaller purple and white petals within it.

And Bucky knows he’s being ridiculous—knows that Nadia and Kim have written their own vows, and his only job is to make space for them—but he still finds himself pacing a path in the grass—away from the tent, obviously, because the last thing he needs is to ruin every perfect placement, but he is _losing his mind_. It’s Sam who comes to find him, eventually, because Bucky isn’t allowed any dignity at all.

“You okay?” he asks, like that isn’t a stupid question.

“No,” Bucky says. “Is there anything else you need to ask me?”

“Yeah,” Sam says. “You know where the bathroom is?”

And that’s how Sam marches him to the bathroom at the back of the dance hall, their shoes squeaking across the wood, and thank god it’s an hour early, because only miscellaneous family members are around, and all of them are either too busy or too relaxed to give a damn about what Bucky’s up to.

“Okay,” Sam says, when he gets Bucky in there and closes the door behind them. “Splash some water on your face, talk to your reflection, whatever. This is a judgement free zone.”

“Why are you being so nice to me?” Bucky says. It sounds like a complaint. It is, probably. He’s too tired for anything new right now, for anything out of the ordinary.

“Because this is depressing,” Sam says, and then scowls. “I’m always nice.”

“Go back to making fun of me,” Bucky says. “Please.”

“Fine,” Sam says. “I’m not sure purple’s your color.”

Sam, on the other hand, looks stunning in purple. It’s the wrong shade to match the wedding decorations—closer to magenta, a little to rich, a little too bright—and god Bucky hates that he’s wasting time noticing that instead of remembering what he has to say. He tries Sam’s water trick, but the spout splashes, and then there’s water across his vest, his shirt, and the crotch of his pants.

“I’d offer to help, but,” Sam says, and looks more amused than Bucky thinks the situation warrants.

“I’m going to ruin their wedding,” Bucky says.

Sam says, “Why would you do that?”

This, Bucky thinks, is the worst thing someone could say to someone in Bucky’s position. Obviously he doesn’t _want_ to ruin the wedding. It wouldn’t be on purpose. It’s not like he’s plotting some kind of wedding-ruining coup de grâce.

“That’s—I don’t—I’m not—I wouldn’t on _purpose_.”

“Exactly,” Sam says. “Just keep that in mind and you’ll be fine.”

“I didn’t mean to ruin my pants, either, and yet! I have.”

Sam says, “Most likely, they’ll dry.”

“This isn’t helpful,” Bucky says, and means it.

“Really? Because you’re smiling.”

“I’m not,” says Bucky, who is.

“You are,” says Sam, who can see it. “You’re gonna be great. You wanna give it a test run?”

“No,” Bucky says. “I want everyone to be surprised. Including you.” Including himself, Bucky figures; he isn’t sure which words’ll make it out, but he knows the words he’s written, backwards and forwards, inside and out. “Thanks for being nice.”

“I’m always nice,” Sam says. “You should tie your hair up, though. It, uh. It looks nice that way.”

Bucky catches sight of himself in the mirror. He’s less red than he’s expecting. Sam, though—Sam’s got a tint.

“Thanks,” Bucky says.

“Don’t choke,” Sam says, and slips away.

 

* * *

 

And this is it. This is the magic: when everyone sits down, the trees around the grassy acre they’re on let down a torrent of white flowers, and some pollen, if the sneezes are anything to go by. The flowerchild throws his petals, and when he reaches Bucky, he tugs the big, decorative flowers from the basket’s handle and holds them up to Bucky. Bucky puts them on his head like a headdress, held together by the silver ribbon that had tied them together and to the basket; what’s he gonna do, say no to a four-year-old?

Nadia comes down next, Mr. and Mrs. Khan on either side of her. They take one side. Kim comes down the aisle with Jaime on one side and her phone held out beside her, Scott floating on the screen, looking decidedly dewy-eyed, suit and tie and all. Kim hands Scott off to Jaime and takes Nadia’s hands as soon as she reaches her, and they’re all smiles—they’ve both foregone veils in favor of decorative strands of beads and gems through their hair, gathered in a shining barrette in Nadia’s hair and left loose and flowing in Kim’s. The way they’re looking at each other makes all of this worth it—the panic, the fear, the dubious ordaining website. For a second, Bucky forgets his words. Almost like magic, his eyes find Sam, who’s looking back at him. And he takes a breath.

“Hi,” he says. Kim shoots him a glance; there’s a world of sarcasm there, and what Bucky foresees as a lifetime of her giving him a hard time. It’s relaxing. Even when she darts her eyes up to the flowers on his head. “For those of you who don’t know me, I’m Kim and Scott’s uncle—and Nadia’s almost uncle-in-law—and I’m standing up here because Scott couldn’t join us physically. But he’s right over there, and should be floating around different devices all day.”

“Hi,” says Scott from the phone, tinny and euphonic.

“When Kim asked me to marry her and Nadia—”

“ _Phrasing_ ,” Kim coughs. Nadia laughs.

“—or to officiate the wedding, I was surprised, and a little nervous. It felt like an incredible invitation. To be a part of this family, who are so welcoming, and kind, and spirited. It’s the kind of invitation that weddings are made of. Two people, inviting each other not just into their hearts, but into their families; into their shared histories; and into their futures. Today, we’ve all been invited to witness this definitive step into their futures turning into the same future—their commitment to share in whatever happens next, good and bad, together, a testament to the kind of love that the best kind of stories are written about. You guys have your vows?”

“I’ll go first,” Nadia says. “Kim—I love you. Um—” Her eyes go wide. “I got too excited and I forgot. Give me a second.”

Bucky, who’s been afraid of this happening to him, can’t help but be warmed by seeing it happen in real time—because it’s not embarrassing, it’s not terrible. Their guests laugh, but it’s warm. The whole world, for a second, feels full of love. Bucky is definitely going to cry.

“I love you so much,” Nadia says. “My vow to you is to treat every day of our marriage as a choice to stay together. To support you, to laugh with you, to cry with you, even though I’m usually the crier anyway, and, um…”  

“I love you,” Kim whispers, when she falters again.

“I know,” Nadia whispers back. Louder, she continues: “I promise to be your wife, to be your friend, to be your partner, in whatever comes next. That’s my vow to you.”

“Your turn,” Bucky says quietly, when Kim seems lost for words.

“Nadia,” Kim says, and Bucky can hear a shake in her voice. “I promise to be your wife, your friend, your partner, all those good things. I promise to grow with you, and support you, and do my best to make you happy—even if that means crying with you, you big sap.” There’s more laughter. It’s still so warm; Bucky is still just shy of crying. His goal is to last until at least the kiss. He can do that at least, surely. “I am so lucky to have found you, and so incredibly happy that we found each other, and I promise to never forget that. I promise to love you, because that’s an easy one. I promise that I’m here for you. I love that Bucky talked about the future, because that’s what I see when I look at you. I see the best possible future, and I’m so full of joy to be able to explore that with you.”

“God,” Bucky says, who is losing his battle against himself, his eyes definitely spilling over. “Okay—hey, slow down,” he says, when Nadia goes in for a kiss too soon. Bucky’s got _lines_. He knows what comes next. “Nadia, do you take Kim to be your wife, and all that that entails?”

“Yes—I do, I mean,” Nadia says, and laughs, even as she sniffles, her eyes shining.

“Kim, do you take Nadia to be your wife—”

“I do! Shit—sorry,” Kim says.

“And all that that entails?” Bucky finishes it, because damn if he won’t make it all the way through.

“Yes!”  

“Then by the power invested in me by the Universal…Life...Church from the internet—” and of course this is where Bucky’s memory fails him, of course, but— “I now pronounce you married! You may kiss your bride.”—that’ll just have to be good enough.

And from the sound of cheering and the laughter of the brides as they fall into each other's arms, it absolutely is.

 

* * *

  

The reception is even easier. There’s good food, good music, and everyone has only good things to say to and about the brides, who haven’t stopped smiling since their first, second, seventh kiss under the white tents. It would be anticlimactic, Bucky thinks, if weren’t all so damn happy. But he’s at a table right next to the family table—because it didn’t feel right to take Scott’s place there, not when a laptop could be set up to make him close-to-there—with Steve, Sam, and Sarah, as well as two of the calmer college friends from the bachelorette party. Conversation flows as easily as the wine does; everyone feels the need to comment on his flowers, but every time he’s passed the flowerchild, the little boy has reached for his head (never to take the flowers back, but only to pat them, readjust them, laugh when he sees that they’ve stayed in place) and that’s all been cuter than he knows how to deal with. The cake is chocolate and peanut-butter, which is odd, but nice, Bucky supposes; it’s tiered so high with such delicate, elaborate decorations that Bucky is surprised when the chocolate spire on his piece doesn’t collapse when he touches it, but shatters beautifully between his teeth.

He figures it’ll have to end, like all nights do, but before it does, he steps outside. There’s a porch swing along the front of the dance hall, the old, creaky kind; when he sits on it, he feels like a kid again, kicking his heels and letting the cool night air calm him down. It’s the first time in recent history that his stepping outside doesn’t mean running away, but preserving—he’s holding his memory of this evening tight, capturing every spare moment and tucking it away, so that he doesn’t forget it. So that he can keep it, no matter what happens tomorrow.

Because the night’s gone the way that it has, he’s not surprised that Sam comes up to and finds him.

But it’s nice that he asks, “Did you need a minute?” before sitting down, the door still open behind him. Bohemian Rhapsody is playing. People are dancing and pantomiming like fools. Bucky’s heart is full to bursting.

“Sit, if you want,” he says. Sam closes the door, and does.

“This is a really nice area,” he says. “I wasn’t sure what to expect. The bachelorette party was pretty untraditional, but this was kind of old-school. Well,” he says, “maybe not quite. A little new-school in the old-school. This is new,” he adds, and tugs at one of Bucky’s petals.

“Watch it,” Bucky says, batting his hand away. “That was a gift.”  

“And a beautiful one,” Sam says, and when he laughs, Bucky realizes he’s a little too close because he can feel the warmth of his breath on his cheek.

“It’s funny,” Bucky says, and stops, because he knows, deeply, truly, that he shouldn’t keep going. Preserving is what he wanted to do—he should pause. Should think. Should keep quiet.

“Okay,” Sam says slowly, no longer laughing. “Are you planning on finishing that thought?”

“It’s stupid,” Bucky says. He’s fighting the urge to kick his feet and get the porch swing swaying again, but that’d be too much, even for him.

“Can I be the judge of that?”

All the lights they have set around the garden have Sam lit up in gold and shadow, and looking at him is too much, for a minute. He’s smiling, small and amused like he’s forgotten about it and just left it there for Bucky to see, by accident, in passing, a punch to the chest.

“I almost thought, the other night,” Bucky says, “that maybe you were gonna kiss me. For a second,” he adds quickly, when Sam blinks—god, he looks so surprised—and doesn’t say anything. “I told you, it’s stupid.”

“I mean—”

Bucky looks at the garden, at the stars that he can just barely see above them, at the air. He can’t look at Sam again. Not just yet.

“Can we not talk?” Bucky says. “It’s so nice out. We can just sit and swing for a minute and relax.”

“Is that what you want to do?”

“Yeah,” Bucky says, in a voice two octaves too high. It sounds like a question.

“Okay,” Sam says. And for thirty blissful, painful seconds, that’s what they do. “I just thought,” he says, and ruins it: “I thought that maybe you were gonna kiss _me_.”

Bucky can’t look at him. He can’t. He’ll _die_. “At the—at the party? Or…”

“Or now,” Sam says. Bucky can feel him shrug. He’s careless about it; his arm brushes Bucky’s on its way up. His hand lands on Bucky’s on the way down. Stays there.

Bucky’s brain fritzes out and stops working entirely.

“God,” Sam says. “You’re like—no offense, but you are really, _really_ bad at this.”

Sam’s smile shines out in the dark. Bucky catches sight of it because he thinks _kiss—Sam?_ and starts moving that way before his sense kicks back in and stops him short.

“It’s impressive, honestly,” Sam says, and it’s mean, him talking like that, him smiling like that, him looking like that. “All those stories about Bucky the lady killer, and here you are, hesitating.”

“I was never a lady killer. Well,” he amends, and doesn’t make the requisite joke. Doesn’t have the time to, because Sam’s hand is on his neck, and then it’s in his hair, and then Sam’s smile is against his lips, and then Sam isn’t smiling because he’s kissing him, _oh god_ he’s kissing him, slow and sweet, a press, a kiss, a draw-away, a repeat, and Bucky is so, so ready to embarrass himself.

He does—a sound that sounds too much like a squeak, but when Sam moves back to laugh at him, he grips him by the waist to pull him back to him and does what he must—what he wants to, what he feels, right now, what he’s living for.

Sam—Sam really knows what he’s doing, and Bucky can’t feel anything but the back he’s accidentally slipped his fingers under Sam’s shirt to feel, and the wet, warm press of Sam’s lips against his, and he was right, Bucky was right, he is going to die here, and it’s going to be so worth it, and when whoever’s in charge of the afterlife finds him they’re gonna say _wow, you…and that guy?_ and Bucky is going to be so, so proud to say yes.

They disconnect, eventually, and Bucky wants to demand that that stops immediately, but his lips feel like they’re buzzing, so probably restoration of standard blood flow is a good thing.

“So,” Sam says. He has Bucky’s face in one hand, his thumb brushing over the short length of Bucky’s beard, and it’s not that Bucky thought the stomach tremors would stop, but he hadn’t expected them to escalate, after this. “Is that what you were expecting?”

“Better,” Bucky says. His words are too slow; his mouth hasn’t remembered how to be apart from Sam’s, yet. He clears his throat. “I mean, I was expecting to sit in silence, so.”

“Hm,” Sam says, and presses his thumb against Bucky’s lower lip. Bucky’s brain does that thing again. “You’re better at that than I expected.”

“I’m good at a lot of things,” Bucky says. Sam laughs. Where Bucky’s voice pitched up, Sam’s has pitched down, low enough that Bucky feels it in his own chest.

“That a promise?”

“Absolutely,” Bucky says, too fast, maybe, too fervently, but his whole body feels too hot.

Someone on the lawn calls out about their car keys. Bucky’s not ashamed to admit that he’s so far gone that he’s forgotten what cars are, what _keys_ are, so it’s a good thing that Sam ducks in to kiss him once—quick, too quick, gone _too quick_ —before standing up and pulling Bucky along with him.

“Let’s go celebrate,” Sam says, and claps him on the back. His hand stays there, which Bucky absolutely notices.

“I don’t even care about this wedding anymore,” Bucky says, which is a lie.

“Bucky Barnes, you’re a liar,” Sam says, but he laughs again, and Bucky takes a moment outside of himself to notice how Sam is smiling, how comfortably his hand fits at the root of Bucky’s back, the glances he keeps cheating at Bucky, his face, his hair, his suit.

“I hope you didn’t miss up my hair,” Bucky says, and slides Sam’s hand away from his spine to catch it in his hand, instead.

“I absolutely did,” Sam says, smug as anything.

And Bucky says, “ _God_ ,” but what he’s thinking about is how convenient that is. How he hopes everyone sees it and their hands clasped together and knows. Hopes they’re obvious. Hopes—knows—by the way Sam’s smile creases up the corners of his eyes that he’s thinking the same thing.

 

* * *

 

Kim sees, and laughs at him, and drags him to sing a karaoke song with her in the middle of the dancefloor, but Bucky doesn’t know any songs from the 90s and mostly ends up singing toneless back-up. When he sits down again, Steve leans over, looks at him, and raises his eyebrows so high, so slowly, that Bucky wants to smack them off his face.

And this, Bucky realizes, when he’s had another two glasses of champagne and his best friend who can’t dance is dancing with _his_ best friend’s sister, and his great-niece is dancing with her wife on one arm and her brother on a smartphone in the other, and Jaime, who’s been crying all day, is puffy-eyed but still clear enough to throw her arms around Bucky and yell in his ear that he did a beautiful job—this, all of it, the people and the food and the dancing, the music and the words and the kisses that he can still feel, all night, all morning: _this_ is the best night of Bucky’s life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and that's it! the next part gets a little sexy, so if you're into that, read-on; if you're not, this is the ending for you! thank you for reading, and i hope you're as happy as bucky is after the neatest wedding he's ever been to in his life.  
> also, they smooched! finally....a smooch.


	11. (The Wishful-est Number)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a bonus chapter, in which, the next morning, bucky is still walking on air.  
> halfway between M/E, really, and mostly just very romantic.

It would be fair to say that Bucky’s nervous. What of, he couldn’t say; it feels like everything, it feels like nothing, it feels like the splintering of so many possible futures. Most of the guests stayed at the same hotel, so when he wakes up, it’s in a bed that’s mostly pillows. The covers feel a little like they’re strapping him down, but it’s surprisingly comfortable, being held in like this. The morning light is cool and white, last night was fantastic, and he still feels the same warm glow of the joy of it, an event that he was apart of gone so wonderfully.

The knock at the door is soft enough that he wouldn’t have heard it if he wasn’t awake. As is, he rolls out of bed and to the peephole to confirm his suspicions—Steve and out too early.

“Come on in,” Bucky says, and tucks himself back into bed as soon as Steve does.

“Just checking in,” Steve says.

“I take it they kept you off the Everclear last night?”  

“Hardly,” Steve says with a grimace. “Your nieces—” Nieces, Bucky thinks, and smiles. “Tried to slip me some under the table, but I’ve learned my lesson.”

“There  _ is  _ such a thing as moderation.”

“My whole body revolted last time,” Steve says. “Moderate that.”

“Are you heading back already?” Bucky asks. Steve’s fully dressed, which Bucky thinks is unnecessary. Check-out isn’t until eleven. This is the height of leisure.

“I’m detouring with Sarah,” Steve says. “Sam’s lending us the car, so.”

“Sure,” Bucky says, like he can’t see Steve blushing. “You have fun with that.”

“She’s a nice girl,” Steve says.

“Hot.”

“ _ Anyway _ ,” Steve says loudly, “the reason we have Sam’s car is because he wants to do some sightseeing before going back. See some gardens. Walk around.”

“He’s treating it like a vacation. That’s good. It’s a nice area.”

“If only someone was around who could keep him company.”

“He probably doesn’t want company.”

“Are you really going to make me say it?”

“I wouldn’t.”

“I know, okay?” Steve, in a feat previously unknown to man, is so red that even his hair’s gone a little ginger. “I know you and Sam…hooked up last night. I’m trying to give you my blessing, and, I don’t know, help.”

“Steve,” Bucky says slowly, “what do you think Sam and I did last night?”

“You were gone for a while! I don’t know!”

“But if you had to guess.”

“Bucky—”

“Here, I’ll demonstrate with my fingers. Do you think it was more like—”

“Bucky!” But Bucky is laughing to hard to keep that going, anyway, and even when Steve grabs a pillows from the foot of his bed to pelt him with it, and the tassel hits him in the eye, it takes several minutes of labored breathing to sober up enough to speak again.

“We kissed,” Bucky says. “He kissed me. That’s it, you old pervert.”

“I’m not a,” Steve says, “it’s, you, I—”

“It was my niece’s wedding,” Bucky says. “Think of the children. My pants remained untouched, thank you very much.”

“You’re the worst person I know,” Steve says.

“And  _ you  _ spent the last twelve hours imagining me and Sam in all kinds of—” The next pillow hits Bucky square in the mouth, and then it’s a good old-fashioned pillow fight, all cushions flying. There are fingers jabbed into soft sides and at least one case of biting, and Bucky doesn’t win, exactly, but he does wrap Steve up in his blanket and send him to the floor, so he’s pretty sure the little bruises are worth it. “Now,” Bucky says, “if you’re done defaming Sam’s virtue—”

“It’s not a  _ virtue  _ thing,” Steve says, muffled by the blanket.

“I know. It’s a feelings thing,” Bucky says.

“You two really are perfect for each other,” Steve mutters.

Bucky says, “Get out of my room.”

 

* * *

 

He’s not up to see Steve and Sarah off, but he knows that Sam’s still in his room, so he does what any other fool with a crush would do—he writes a note on hotel stationary and goes down the hall to slide it under Sam’s door.

 

* * *

_ Do you like me _

⬜  _ just kidding _

⬜  _ wanna grab breakfast? _

 

_ BB _

 

* * *

 

Instead of doing what Bucky’s expecting him to, like maybe check a box, or do nothing, Sam opens the door and stares, so amused and so exasperated that Bucky immediately forgets what he wrote down at all.

“Really?”

“Really—I—huh?”

“Come in,” Sam sighs, and while Bucky’s room, at the moment, is an embarrassment of pillows, Sam’s already neatened up his bed and packed his bag away. And Bucky didn’t realize how badly he wanted Steve to be right until it looks like he wasn’t.

“Thought you were sticking around?”

“Not here,” Sam says. “There’s a little bed and breakfast a little ways east.” Bucky’s not hoping for an invitation, exactly, but he’d like a little clarity. Offering to tag along seems like overstepping; waiting feels worse.

“So,” Bucky says, and waits anyway.

“Of course you’d be weird about this,” Sam says, and laughs low and warm. Bucky doesn’t know if it’s with or at him, and he doesn’t care. What he does care about is the way that Sam walks up to him and tugs him close enough that when he moves to kiss him, all Bucky has to do is go with it.

“So breakfast,” Bucky says when they part. He wants Sam to say no. Wants him to kiss him again. Realizes, with a stroke of genius, that he can do that himself, and runs his mouth along the edge of Sam’s jaw. “Let me take you out,” he says between kisses peppered along the line of Sam’s beard.

“You could,” Sam says, “we could do that.” But his hands are on Bucky’s hips, skimming along his waistband, and when his fingers edge up under his shirt to brush skin, Bucky bites down, by accident until Sam gasps and his fingers dig in.

“Or,” Bucky says, and fuck, but he’s happy. He’s so—he’s so happy that he can’t kiss Sam, for a second, can’t do anything but smile against his neck, and he’s so warm, and smells so good, and when Sam laughs, Bucky vibrates with it, and it’s so purely  _ good  _ that Bucky wants to collapse in it.

“Come on,” Sam says, and in a move that Bucky misses, twists them both to the right and backwards so that they land on the bed, facing each other, a little dizzy but no worse for wear.

“Hi,” Bucky says.

“Is this okay?”

“Yeah,” Bucky says, “yes, yup, it’s absolutely okay.”

“Hm. I thought I’d be waiting in this room all day for you to show up.”

“Sorry I’m a little slower than you were expecting,” Bucky says. He has to remind himself that he’s allowed to feel this, feel Sam, touch him, even; his hand drifts over the side of Sam’s cheek until Sam grabs it and pulls it down to earth. Bucky laughs. “You were waiting for me, and I was waiting on you.”

“For what?”

“Forgiveness, maybe,” Bucky says, and maybe that’s too honest for now, too dark for the moment they’re in. Sam closes his eyes, but he smiles when Bucky’s thumb brushes the corner of his lips. “Your comfort.”

“I’m pretty comfortable,” Sam hums.

“Can I kiss you again?”

“Yes,” Sam says, “yup, absolutely.” He is definitely making fun of Bucky, but Bucky has his mouth on his again, and does not care.

And this is the last hurdle, isn’t it—it’s what Bucky was afraid of, afraid of having, of losing, of having to confront. It’s what he was nervous about. What he’s been nervous about. In reality, it’s a whirlwind—moments long, slow, and in between made up of Sam’s mouth, his tongue, his hands; his leg between Bucky’s, his voice crying out when Bucky bears down, when Bucky makes use of his own hands to make Sam sound like that again. It’s Sam’s chest under Bucky’s hands, his skin warm and soft against Bucky’s; it’s his teeth against Bucky’s neck and the way it feels to let everything go, their clothes spread around them and their bodies moving together in a way Bucky didn’t expect, couldn’t have predicted. Sam’s back flexes above him, and he moves his hand over it, in awe of the wings that aren’t there, but might as well be. His hand between them, gripping them tightly, together; Bucky’s legs spread around his hips, drawing him ever closer, greedy for it, desperate for one more inch of contact.

Sam kisses him when he comes. When Bucky comes, he presses his face against Sam’s neck again, instead, says, “ _ Oh _ ,” because he’s forgotten all the other words, gives himself over the smell of him, the feel of him, the way he makes him feel.

Afterwards, Sam kisses his cheek, his temple, the shell of his ear, just below it. “When I said I was waiting for you in here, I didn’t mean…”

“You better not be calling me easy, Wilson,” Bucky says, and Sam laughs and laughs and laughs.  

 

* * *

 

“Steve thought we did that outside yesterday,” Bucky says, over pancakes an hour and two showers later.

Sam chokes on his coffee, and then says, “No, he doesn’t. He thinks you told me you had feelings for me yesterday.”

“Same thing,” Bucky says, and he knows he’s right.

 

* * *

 

At the botanical gardens, Sam kisses him in front of a rosebush. When they get back to the rental car, Bucky pushes him against it to kiss him in a way that’s much less rose garden appropriate.

Sam drives to the bed and breakfast afterwards and takes Bucky up to his room. Their room, Bucky figures, after Bucky has him inside of him in the first half hour, and rides him in the bathtub an hour after that.

“This,” Sam says, after they’ve abandoned their takeout on the table and gone to bed again, and Bucky would feel embarrassed if it wasn’t so good, if Sam didn’t want him as badly as he wants Sam, over and over, anyway he can have him, “is not as restful as vacation as I was expecting.”

“No?” Bucky asks from his navel, where he’s planning on kissing his way down further—until he has Sam in his mouth, he thinks, until he’s got him pulling his hair. “That’s because we’re not done yet. When we are, you’ll rest.”

“Will I?” Sam asks, and there’s heat in his eyes when Bucky meets them, but there’s warmth in his smile, and the way he pushes Bucky’s hair back and strokes along his hairline. “Is that a promise?”

“It’s an inevitability,” Bucky says, and takes him down until he’s twitching.

 

* * *

 

Vacations, like all good things, come to an end, and after the second day, they both get a text from Steve—Bucky gets a question as to where Sam is, and Sam gets an SOS.

“A mission?” Bucky asks. Sam looks at him.

They’ve avoided it, is the thing, whether or not Bucky will be joining them. Bucky knows he’s a little out of shape, but he’ll always be capable, so that shouldn’t be a question. The question is whether or not Sam and Steve can make space for him. Whether they trust him, with that. Whether they want to.

Sam lets out a sigh so big it balloons his cheeks. It had been a nice dinner before this. They’d gone to a little Italian place, warm and classic. What they’ve got right now, Bucky knows doesn’t last. But it’s theirs, and it’s perfect, and he wants it too, even if just for a few more moments.

“You really wanna get back in?” Sam asks.

“What you’re doing,” Bucky says, “I know it’s important. I don’t want to fight for the sake of fighting. I want to fight with you.”

Sam looks at him. “You know you’ll still have me even if you don’t, right?” Bucky feels like his face is going to freeze like this. He’s pretty sure he hasn’t stopped smiling since that hotel morning.

“I do,” Bucky says. “But this feels right.”

Sam says, “Then I guess we’d better suit up.”

 

* * *

 

So this is how it goes: they fight and they fuck, never each other and always each other. Bucky and Paul make weird recipes together and sometimes Paul records them and puts them on one of the video sites. They do pretty well on the internet. Steve throws pillows at Bucky and Sam when he catches them making out on Sam’s couch; Bucky has never caught Steve and Sarah at it, and he’s not all that sure what’s going on there, but he keeps his throwing arm ready. As a team, they destroy HYDRA bases and ferret out weird and nearly comical world-domination plans on a weekly basis, most of their missions selected by a group of women whose faces Bucky’s never seen, but whose voices always sound a little too familiar. Bucky still sees Sarah at the library all the time; she still makes fun of him, but now there’s layers of familiarity to it, and he thinks she’s warming up to the idea of him dating her brother.

He goes to Kim and Nadia’s for dinner every few weeks, and Jaime’s every Sunday for lunch. When Scott’s healed up enough that he can sit for the six hour flight, they have a family reunion that involves a lot of Scott asking questions about old World War II stories that Bucky barely remembers, but in a good way, the kind of way that means he’s lived too much of a life, recently, for all that to be in the forefront.

He gets Steve drunk on Everclear, and they work out, through trial and error, how much is too much and how much is just enough. He’d forgotten that Steve is a sappy drunk, but all he does on those nights is throw himself all over Bucky and Sam and tell them how lucky he is to have them. And every time, Sam catches Bucky’s eye, and says, “Don’t I know it,” in a way that makes Bucky’s insides feel like they’ve turned to honey.

And every time, Bucky smiles, and thinks that if he’s very, very lucky, that this might just be a life. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, what a journey! Thank you for reading my fic about Bucky scamming his way to free meals all across the eastern United States, based on the lovely wedding piece done by [@keire-ke](http://%20keire-ke.tumblr.com), who was also the courageous beta who agreed to read something that was supposed to be 15k words, and did not bail when it ballooned with no warning to over twice its anticipated size. That said, all remaining errors are mine, because I’m a tinkerer who kept adding things up til and beyond the 11th hour. (If you see anything, please do not hesitate to let me know. My eyes are perpetually tired and also? My hands are fast but lazy.)  
> 
> 
> This was a lot of fun, for all that I owe the  CapRBB mods many, many apologies, because someone (me) had too little time to do this (me specifically) and too little email reading comprehension in general (this is about me).  
>  And thank you, finally, to anyone who reads this. I’ve been more or less off AO3 since the last time I posted on here a couple years ago, and there’s something incredibly heart-warming about seeing comments on pieces that I abandoned as soon as I’d thrown them out there. Thanks for reading my stuff, I’m an enthusiastic idiot but god do I like making my faves smooch! And generally have a good time!
> 
>   
> 
> 
> I think that’s everything??  
>  SamBucky rights!
> 
> eta: ya girl was wrong. I wanted to add that the title is based on the song "If You're Hearing This," by Hook N Sling/Parson James/Betty Who (look at that a collaboration inspired by a collaboration). Other tunes to consider while reading this include "White I Need" (Hayley Kiyoko/Kehlani), and "Complicated" by (Mura Masa/NAO)(and "Orbit," "Another Lifetime," and "Drive and Disconnect"), and "four ethers" by serpentwithfeet.
> 
> the _sexier_ songs to consider for chapter 11 include the whole latter half of that list. does my definition of sexy overlap with big sad? apparently? and? 
> 
> you're welcome tho.

**Author's Note:**

> i said SamBucky rights!
> 
>  
> 
> [@fantasticrex](http://fantasticrex.tumblr.com) on tumblr if ur nasty


End file.
